I’ve been married to a handsome man for forty years. While I’ve deteriorated like an aging block of Vermont cheddar, he continues to get more handsome. This fact is very annoying. He’s also never taken a bad picture.
At our wedding, the professional photographer took more than 150 shots. Every picture of my Beloved showed his sparkling blue eyes and radiant crooked smile. There was one good shot of me awkwardly getting out of the rental car’s backseat.
(We had no money, and there’s no glory in renting a 1974 Dodge. As the best man and maid of honor drove us through my small hometown, the horn ceased working about five minutes in. Isn’t the horn the most important function for the post-ceremony circle around town?)
One night last week, we posed for our church directory picture. The loquacious Olan Mills photographer and Chief Sales Pitch Guy kept telling my Beloved, “What a lucky man you are!” We had to wait for the photo preview after the photo set, and we heard him tell at least three more men the same thing, whether their wives looked like Halle Berry or Broderick Crawford.
Finally, the Sales Pitch man took us into the Sales Pitch room (formerly a Sunday School classroom). The walls and table were covered with framed pictures of happy, peppy people. I don’t want a picture of us at this stage(frumpy) .
I’ve gained weight and have a chinny-chin, several chinny-chin-chins, and age spots I’ve carefully concealed with Old Lady Foundation (ask for it by name.) These age spots, some the size of small European countries, result from childhood summers at the lake.
Two-inch hairs often grow from the middle of my cheek, and of course, one leaped forth right before the photo session. I've stopped coloring my hair because I don’t have a full-time income. My natural color is “Blech.” My eyebrows are the same color and resemble those of Broderick Crawford.
My chest is south of where it used to be. But my muffin top holds it up, so there’s that. Are you getting the picture?
The only picture I wanted to get was the one for the church directory. That’s all. We do not want to order an 11x14, four 8x10s, sixteen 5x7s, and 48 wallets. Who would want these pictures? (Strangely, when my child was younger, I would buy ALL of the Sears Portrait Studio offers, so now I have all these 11x14 pictures of my child at every significant age marker until he went to school. No one, including me, wants these pictures now. Our son certainly doesn’t want them. Of course, at the time, your mother wants them all. Then she died, and you get them all back. Double blech.)
Meanwhile, the Sales Guy continues his promotion – a 16 x 20 in a gold-leafed frame with a photo painted on a special canvas. Wouldn’t this look great in your son’s dorm room, he asked. This man has no children or has never been around an 18-year-old before. Our son doesn’t want a giant picture of his parents staring at him every day when he has finally escaped our clutches.
We told Olan Mills we only wanted the free eight by 10. We weren’t even interested in that, but we didn’t have the heart to tell him. We just wanted to be in the church directory.
He pleaded, “Well, that photo is FREE. There is no additional cost; however, if you want the touch-up, it’s only $29.95.” Then he showed us two pictures. Each is of the same woman, but the unretouched photograph shows wrinkles, age spots, discolorations, and eye bags. The woman looked as wretched as a Disney cartoon witch. In the retouched photograph, she was beautiful, even glowing. All for $29.95.
We both felt that the Sales Pitch man wanted us to retouch. As my Beloved said, would he offer the little-known “mercy clause” and give it to us for free? He did not; we bailed. Prepare for a Christmas card picture of George Clooney and Broderick Crawford.
The piece ran in my newspaper column in 2009.
So great, Amy! I love your sarcasm and humor. (Ask for it by name.) Ha!
I feel your pain and am glad for a good laugh! 😂