I love everything about my French press coffee maker, with one silly exception.   When I take it apart to wash it, the slender carafe reminds me of  glassware in college chemistry lab years ago.  And that reminds me how many beakers and other glassware I broke and had to pay for.  I even managed to drop a long thermometer exactly down a sink drain wherein the thermometer cracked.  A new one to finish the experiment cost me $25 and a ferocious scowl from the old man who ran the chemistry stock room.

Since then, either my luck or my dexterity has changed for the better.  I owned a cheap pair of binoculars specifically for bird-watching in slippery places.  The binocs never got dropped or drowned.  They had one close call when I was with a friend way out on a breakwater in Charleston Harbor and a nuclear sub glided by.  With only the conning tower visible, the sub pushed up a wake that took us by surprise.  But we didn’t get washed off the breakwater gear and all.   The binocs finally broke of old age.

I’ve had an inexpensive digital camera for years for the same reason:  it was no great loss if it fell into the Chattahoochee, Arkansas or Potomac rivers; drowned in a canoe-capsize in Clear Creek;  slipped out of my hands in the back seat of a radial-engine trainer doing loops and rolls;  bit the dust on a hiking trail;  or had a mishap when I was skittering around photographing interesting weather.  But nothing bad has ever happened to it .  The camera remains intact.  My coordination may be much better when marveling at the world than when struggling through Freshman Chem lab!