Why you always carry a camera

I learned a hard lesson today.  When I got my good camera last year, I took it for every walk I went on.  Then I put it away once I had tested it to my satisfaction.  Tonight I realized why the best photographers say, you ALWAYS have a camera with you.  I was walking along and on the sidewalk in front of me was a Sponge Bob ice cream confection that some child had dropped and obviously his parent told him to leave it on the ground. 

This is not the photo.  I was too angry to shoot one.

What WAS a 5 inch tall ice cream had melted to a PERFECTLY still intact foot long blob, all the colors still  crisp in their lines, the face still perfect, just 2.5 times as long as it had been.  I should have turned around right then, there are 20 dogs or more an hour that walk on that sidewalk.  But instead I finished my route then got on the bike with two cameras and headed back to the spot. 

DOH!

NO FACE.  Just utterly useless to all but ants and more dogs to lick up.  I was crushed.  This was a cash money photo.  Gone...and as fragile as ice cream itself.   It's not like it was hot outside.  It was 50-something farenheit...Damn dogs.