My Belgian Things

When I went to Belgium for the first time, I bought a disposable camera at a shop around the block from a bar my boyfriend-at-the-time was playing music in. It was the only camera in the store, and the paper shell of the camera was detailed like an American flag with a few scattered Statues of Liberty. I took pictures throughout the trip, and on the night that it ran out of exposures, I noticed a message on the bottom of the camera, warning "Develop Film By 12/2006." It was either 2 or 3/2009 at the time.

Atiya told me that for her past birthday (12/2008) she had asked for disposable cameras as gifts; her roommate in Brooklyn bought her the same Freedom Ain't Free disposable camera that I had used in Belgium but loaded with non-expired film.

Today Atiya and I killed an hour while our matching cameras were processed at CVS. When we retrieved our little envelopes from the photo counter, the trained technician asked if one of us had gone through an ex-ray with our camera. I said that I had at least three times, and that the film was already expired, and that I was excited about it.
"Yeah," the woman replied. "One of them came out real funny. As long as you're not mad!"