Two years ago, my church has this "lovely" idea to do a photo directory of the attendees. For several weeks, our bulletin encouraged all regular attenders to sign up for a photo slot. To bribe such cooperation, they offered a free 8x10" photo.
Now, even though my parents still attend there, I am very much my own person and live in my own place, etc, etc, etc. So I had no plans to have a picture taken with my parents and having a photo session of just me did not produce large amounts of excitement. So I more or less just shrugged off the whole thing...until the phone call came.
About a week or two before the cut-off date, a lady in my church called to personally encourage me to sign up and will I commit to a time? I have no problem saying no if I have a good reason. However, for this instance, I couldn't think of a good reason to not have my picture taken so I agreed and signed up for a time. (The next time I saw my mom, I asked her if they received a phone call...they did not! So why me, I wonder???)
I showed up for this photo session, trying to ignore the fact that I was very much single and telling myself that this is no big deal. I had to fill out a form: name, age, name of my future first child, etc...which I handed over as soon as I was done. From there, things went down hill. The photographer, who clearly read that I was 29 years old and not 13, placed a table in front of me and asked me to fold my arms on the table and lay my head on my arms. Can you picture it? Immediately, I started blushing just thinking about how embarrassing even posing this way was...all I knew THIS WAS NOT GOING IN THE CHURCH DIRECTORY!!! Thankfully she took a few more head-on shots, which calmed my panicked heart.
Then I was directed to another room in our church basement where I could review the photos. The next lady pulled up my 3 or 4 pictures and zoomed in so that we could make an "informed" decision. When she pulled up the "I'm-13" photo, I instinctively cringed (inwardly, of course, lest I offend) and was appalled when she "ooh-ed" and "aah-ed" over it. I adamantly said "no" which shocked her. I sensibly chose one the head-on photos for the church directory and settled that whole matter.
"But what of your free 8x10"?"
No, thank you! Call me crazy but I have no desire to have an 8x10" self portrait! How vain and silly that would look!
"But you could give it to your mom! That would make a nice gift!"
Really, I know my mom and she wouldn't want an 8x10" photo of me...she'd never hang it up or prop it anywhere and I'm not sure I'd want her to have it anyways. But then, another member of our congregation entered the little room...someone who knows me. She saw the "I'm-13" photo and "ooh-ed" and "aah-ed" just like the photo lady. And so, between the two of them, I let them talk me into getting an 8x10" photo of the "I'm 13" photos. I walked out of there, just wanting to get away, and wondering what I had just done.
Two weeks later, the horrid picture arrived. Between those two points of time, I had already changed my mind and knew I would not be handing this photo over. But I had already told my family of this nightmare, which gave us all a good laugh, so I figured I'd show them so that we could further our amusement. I handed the envelope to my mom and said "here's your silly picture." Little did I know that before I left that afternoon with the photo, my dad had scanned the photo since he knew my intent was to tear and throw it away. My wonderful dad, then proceeded to email the photo to my aunts, making me cringe and them "ooh-ing" and "aah-ing."
I somewhat wish I had a copy to show you and am somewhat glad that I don't. I'm sure my dad still has a copy somewhere on his computer but as far as I'm concerned, the evidence is gone.
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