New Camera

If you know me at all, then you know that I love digital photography. I love taking pictures, processing them and delighting people with the final results. It's my creative outlet, hobby and so much more.
Ever since I took some of my friends' senior pictures, I have been hankering for an SLR camera. At first I thought that my parents were going to get me one for graduation. They didn't (although they did get me a Coach purse :D ). Then I figured that I could buy one once I got a job. Problem with that plan was that I still do not have a job. (Recessions are horrible.) However, I ended up having just about enough money through a combination of money I had earned plus graduation money to pay for a camera (not including tax). After shopping around online, I decided that a Canon Rebel XSi 10MP was my camera. It came with two lenses, a 18-55mm and a 75-300mm. The entire package was priced at $699.99.
Now I do not have a credit card so enter parents. It took a while to convince my dad but in the end he let me order the camera. I ordered it and it was set to arrive in a week or so.
The camera arrived on the same day as my mom's surgery. (By the way, the surgery went well and my mom is fast recovering.) It came later in the day, around 7pm, and I did not pay it too much attention due to my mom's condition and my own cold. However, my heart swelled with pride every time I looked at the brown cardboard box it had arrived in sitting on the coffee table. It was my camera, and as I was subconsciously thinking, my baby.
The next day was also one full of ice packs and visitors (both Mom's) and tissues (mine) and naps (both). So again I did not acquaint myself with my new camera. I did, however, vehemently defend my decision to buy it against my cousin who loves to scheme and argue and thought that paying that much money for a camera was a waste.
So on the third day of its presence, I took out "my baby" to test it out. I took about 30-40 pictures of flora. Then I took it back inside, downloaded the pictures (after running the solutions disk) and messed around with the pictures a bit. While I was doing that and more, my little nieces and nephews arrived. So, I grabbed my new camera and put it to work taking pictures of those cuties. In the middle of taking a picture of my niece, Priya, the camera began its decline. The viewfinder kept saying busy and the LCD screen stopped working altogether. I tried charging the battery, emptying the memory card, and just "giving it a rest." In the end, the camera stopped working altogether by the next morning.
I contacted Canon through email. They gave me one thing to try to see if that would make it work. It didn't. So I requested a UPS shipping label so that I could send them my camera and they could repair it. When I told my dad that I had done that, he told me to tell them I that I actually do not want the shipping label; we were returning the camera.
So now we get to the whole point of this rant/rambling. As I was packing up my camera for its return, as I removed the lens, but on the various covers, etc., my throat choked up and I cried. Only for like 10 seconds but nonetheless I shed tears. I, who has not shed a single tear in over two months despite the fact that in these two months I have graduated, said good-bye to many dear friends and found out about my mom's cancer, cried over a camera. I'm so disgusted with my extreme affection for an inanimate object that I have not possessed for even a week. This whole situation has made me stop and think about what I value. Now I don't know if there is a direct link between valuing something and crying over it but I definitely know that somewhere my priorities are wrong.