Bedtime Story for a New Camera Owner

One day the little girl took indoor pictures with her new camera. She was puzzled by how much noise there was in the pictures, and she couldn’t understand why her new camera was so much worse than her old one. She took picture after picture and the outcome was always the same, and by no means as good as everyone had said it would be. She had spent all of her lunch money for the new camera and when she realized that all she got for it were noisy pictures, she sat down and cried.

The Brain Fairy up in the clouds noticed the crying came to see what was going on. She whispered, “Why are you crying, little girl?”

The little girl tried to explain how she couldn’t understand why her new camera wasn’t as good as her old camera, and how she had hoped it would be a lot better, just like everyone said, and how sad she was that she had spent all of her lunch money and all she got were noisy pictures… The Brain Fairy felt sorry for the little girl. She reached into her pocket and pulled out a hand full of brain dust, and while gently sprinkling it onto the little girls head, she said: “Your new camera is a lot more sophisticated than your old one, and certainly you must have missed something that is new to you… There are so many options in the new camera, and the default settings are different from what you are used to. Don’t dispair. Check the settings.”

The little girl wiped the snot from her noise and grabbed her camera. She flipped throug the settings and found that Noise Reduction was OFF. The Brain Fairy flew back to the clouds and the little girl felt like an idiot.

The end.

Originally published at https://karinnelson.substack.com on February 8, 2022.