Tuesday, March 19, 2013

Pictures Don't Lie, Unless You Pay For It.


I’ll be the first to admit it…wait, that’s a lie, let me start over. I’d really never admit this but one good thing about glasses is that they offer a bit of haze between the crow’s feet and the general public. Plus, they also give some shape to tired drooping eyes. I don’t go out in public without my glasses any more. Today was picture day for our church directory; no one is overdue an updated picture more than myself. I have known for a long time that I need a new one and that profile Facebook picture made me look five years younger five years ago.

I forgot, imagine that, that this was picture day until my phone reminded me. I didn’t have time to go home first but luckily I wasn’t running around in my sweats. I was however, dressed a bit like Johnny Cash with my solid black shirt. I hoped that I wasn’t going to stand out as someone from “the dark side” in the church directory.

I went into the room to have my picture taken and the lights were really low in there. It was a good sign. We did several in the “thinking man” pose and then switched up to a different shade of sponge painted backdrop and took a few shots from my other good side. The photographer decided to take a few pictures “sans glasses” . I took off my glasses and she took a few quick pictures, looked at her camera, looked up at me, and then said, “Oh honey no, no you need your glasses…uhuh, no, …” She looked at her camera pics again and continued, “No that’s not going to work….you need those glasses to kind of , you know, give your face some shape or something…yeah, that’s not going to work at all; just go ahead and put your glasses back on.” I was horrified at my hideousness; it was hard to go on and put on my happy face for the camera.

After the session I had to go look at them on the computer. That was tough. When we got to the “glasses free” ones, I almost screamed. Yikes! I swear I had “crazy eye” in all of them. She was a good salesman and had me whipping out my credit card in no time. She was clever. She said, “As much as none of us like to admit it, we are not as young as we used to be. Let me show you something”. She put two pictures out in front of me. The first was just a good, normal picture of herself and the second had been “Airtouched” . She pointed out, “You seen how, in the Airtouched picture, the teeth are a little whiter, the lines on the face are a little softer and the eyes appear a bit brighter?” I saw it; I saw it all. I looked at it and then turned to my big 8x10 mug on her computer in High Definition and said , “Yes please”. She smiled at me, said “Excellent choice” and swiped my credit card…all in one move.

Dear Baby Jesus,

Please forgive me for being so vain that I spent extra money (that could have gone to that country where the kids get mad when you don’t clean your plate) on generic Photoshopping for a picture that will go in a church directory to be viewed by people that I see every Sunday in broad daylight. Is that a big sin? I know it might be false advertising. I promise to be more frugal in the future and will use this as my business card photo and Facebook profile picture for the next ten years. In my defense, I thought the photographer/saleswomen must have been an angel in disguise when she showed me the photo upgrade option…sorry…that was a lie…that thought never entered my mind. Yeah, let’s just stick to my first request and I’ll stop talking before I rack up a list of things that need to be addressed.

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