Last week I brought my professional camera to the service center. It had not been cleaned and checked for more than 3 years, so it really needed maintenance. Before I left home I saw that the memory card was still in the card reader of my laptop, so I only took the battery out of my camera and then drove to the big city, a 1 hour drive from here.
On my way back I suddenly realized that I forgot to take the second memory card out of the camera. My camera uses that for backups of all photos. At the service center they normally check if there are batteries or memory cards in cameras they take in for maintenance, and if any are found, they take these out and return them to the customer. I presume they don't want concerns afterwards about images that disappeared from a card, or about batteries that are not working as good as before. Probably the fact that the main card and battery were already removed prevented the technician from looking further.
Back home I looked at the files on the main card, and it was obvious that if the maintenance technician examined the memory card, they would see more than just bird and garden pictures. The last photos were made in the bathroom, where I took a shower. But these are rather innocent pictures compared to some other ones, on which I get gangbanged by several men and pose for them with a body drenched in juices.
Well, I realized that there was nothing I could do. Calling the service center and asking them to remove the backup card would only make them curious. And I tried to convince myself I would certainly not be the first one who accidentally left private images on a camera, computer or smartphone when sending it in for maintenance. In fact I was not even worried about the fact that strangers could see my images, but if they were to try to make a profit out of it, like some kind of blackmail, that would be a situation I would want to avoid.
This morning I got a call: my camera was ready. I made the 1 hour drive to the city and gave my receipt to the guy at the service center. He went to the storage room and returned with my camera completely wrapped in plastic. I felt relieved; as usual they had not unwrapped it yet, but waited till I was there. I received my camera and it looked great, completely cleaned. I opened it to put in the main card and battery, so I could check the sensor and lens. Then I saw that the backup card was missing.
I was in doubt. Not mentioning the card appears to be a safe choice. But if they had discovered its content already, that would not help me. And if they had not watched the card, but had only put it aside, it would be better to ask for it now. Suppose they would find it later, don't remember whose it was.... then they would surely take a look, to find out who the owner is. There was only one chance that they had not seen it, and that's when it was removed from the camera here at the desk, and stored to put it back later. If that was the case, I had no other choice than to ask for it now. So I did.
And immediately I knew the answer. Not only did the guy get a naughty smile on his face; I now also noticed how some other guys were paying close attention to what was happening at the desk where I was sitting.
