The $151 Photograph

Business is slow enough that the free in freelance is time. I was glad when I got a chance to do some volunteer work for the WUSF Radio Reading Service. I was less glad when I took a wrong turn on the way there, drove over a sidewalk and got a $151 citation from the USF campus police. $151 I could have spent on something I wanted.

No good deed goes unpunished.

Afterward I went to the USF Botanical Garden. I had brought my camera thinking I'd try to snap some shots in the butterfly garden. Of course, by the time I got finished with the police and did my reading, it was after 4 p.m. I stiffed them on the $5 entrance fee. I have already pledged enough to the university for one day.

So the picture below of the largest insect I have ever seen cost me $151 to take. I don't even know what it is. I just noticed a funny looking yellow color on a flower and went to investigate.


Trust me, that bug may have been three inches long.

It could have been worse. I got rained on and rushed back to my car. As I sat waiting to see if the rain would pass, I noticed two people coming out of the botanical gardens' gift shop and head to the the only two other cars in the lot.

That's when I realized the place was closing. Had the rain not sent me fleeing to my car I'd have been locked inside the gardens until 9 a.m. tomorrow. Just late enough to completely miss my shift doing the traffic at WFTS.

I can't afford to miss any paying work. I have a check to write. At least I won't have trouble finding time in my schedule to go to traffic school.