Messy Hair and the Four Nikons, or The Day I Discovered Viennese Coffee

Once upon a time, or maybe four years ago, Messy Hair had a slim Nikon Coolpix camera. Everywhere that Messy Hair went -- Tokyo, Eugene, Kamakura, Hiroshima, and Kyoto - that camera was sure to go. Messy Hair cared more for the slimness of the camera than the quality of its pictures. Because she could slide the very slim camera in and out of a narrow pocket on the outside of her purse at a moment's notice, no sight or site went unremembered.

Ansel Mariner shared Messy Hair's penchant for capturing memories on digital media but, because he is a guy no doubt, his camera-of-choice was one of those 75-pound Nikons that normally show up on the amortization sheets of professional photographers. Three of the four accessory lenses could fit in the special, super-deluxe padded backpack with the camera, while the fourth was so large they assigned it one of the carport spaces and learned to get by with just one vehicle.

Their photographic life proceeded merrily along. Messy Hair flitted around snapping pictures of flowers, statues, hospital corpsmen, and odd signage while Ansel Mariner trudged slowly in her distant wake, lugging his fancy equipment from football game to track meet to scenic panoramic vista. Messy Hair did her best to ignore Ansel's increasingly bowed posture. She only nagged him to stand up straight a couple of times, and we might as well blame that on Messy Hair's posture-obsessed mother since she is no longer alive to defend herself against being blamed for everything short of the earthquake/tsunami/radiation trifecta of March 11.

Then one day Ansel Mariner was invited to a reunion of Japanese doctors in Tokyo. He wondered if he might borrow Messy Hair's camera to capture the memories. Feeling guilty that she could not accompany him to this social event and run her usual interference between him and other human beings, Messy Hair loaned Ansel her camera.

A contrite Ansel walked through the door sans camera five hours later. "I must have left it in the men's room." Oddly, that slim camera is the only lost item in the entire history of Japan that has not eventually found its way back to the owner. A friend left a small shopping bag in a mall restaurant one February and retrieved it when she next visited the mall seven months later. We trust that Ansel really, truly contacted the party hosts in search of Messy's treasured slim camera although the loss of that camera is the only instance in recent memory when her usual charmed existence fell a bit short of the charmed mark.

Ansel worked very hard to redeem himself.  "Please, take my Nikon."  "It's too heavy," she pouted.

"Look!" he called, dancing on his hands and spinning eight china plates with his feet, "I've bought you the newest version of the Nikon Coolpix. It takes much better pictures than the one I lost."

"It's too fat to fit in the special narrow pocket on the outside of my purse," the ungrateful Messy Hair whined.

"Here! I found the exact same model as the one I lost." "Thank you, thank you, thank!" she squealed in delight. "Why don't I take that chubby camera as a backup for my heavy camera?" he slyly suggested. Messy Hair handed it over as politically incorrect phrases, like "Indian-giver" perhaps, bounced inside her head.

Time marched on.  Ansel Mariner sailed the Seven Seas snapping pictures left and right, literally we suppose with the chubby camera in his left hand and the professional behemoth in his right.  Messy Hair raced back and forth across the Miura Peninsula snapping every unfolding plum, cherry, wisteria, and hydrangea blossom.  Sometimes she was struck speechless by the sheer beauty of the children and scenery surrounding her.  Messy Hair throws her entire being into the rare experience of speechlessness.  Her jaw drops, her arms follow suit, and sometimes the camera, wanting in on the action, falls to the pavement or floor or whatever hard surface is closest to hand. 

"What happened to your camera?"  Ansel asked during one of his brief visits home.  "The metal endpiece thing fell off somewhere in Yokohama, or maybe Tokyo, but it still works so don't even think about trying to unload Chubby or Behemoth on me."

Then, just before Messy's next birthday rolled around, the Nikon people released a new version of their Coolpix camera. This one couples the slimness of which Messy is so fond with a retractable shutter that allows for crisper pictures. "Happy birthday!" Ansel announced. "Now you can retire that camera that reflects poorly on your husband and your children."

And that is what Messy did. For all of four months, that is, until the shutter on the new camera turned tempermental. "It won't open all the way, and it won't close all the way. The left upper corner of all my pictures is a black void."

"We'll just get it fixed. I've done some research," said Ansel in November 2010, "and we can have it repaired at the Nikon store in Tokyo. That will be cheaper and faster than shipping it to the U.S. to have it repaired under the warranty."

"What a great plan!" Messy agreed in her usual enthusiastic fashion. "It's readily apparent that all those brilliant Seventh Fleet planners are rubbing off on you."

And that is how five months later it came to pass that Ansel and Messy arrived at the Nikon store in Tokyo shortly before 8:00 am on a Friday morning, having experienced the nearby Tsukiji fish market at the obligatory 6:00 am when the market is at its bustling, energetic peak.

"Nothing on the Ginza opens before 10:00," noticed Messy. "On the contrary," contradicted Ansel, "I see people inside that Doutour coffee shop on the corner. Let's grab some coffee and fire up our Kindles."

Which is how Messy discovered that Viennese coffee combines three of her favorite ingredients: coffee, chocolate, and big dollops of heavy whipped cream.

The red camera was repaired in five minutes at no charge. They've ordered a replacement endpiece for the other camera. That will cost about $5.

Thanks for killing time with me while I wait for Ansel to get back from Korea with the pictures we took in Tokyo when we weren't otherwise occupied sipping Viennese coffee.