It’s picture day at my kids’ school. And picture day makes me cranky.
Maybe it started when I was a kid, when our whole class was warned against playing too hard during recess for fear of getting dirty and sweaty.
Maybe it’s the memory of strangers trying to comb the tangles out of my waist-length hair with a cheap plastic comb, or force loose strands back into failing french braids. Or maybe it’s the uncomfortable contortions we were forced to hold, a smile plastered on our faces.
It probably has something to do with that truly horrible portrait from eight grade, and the hated stink of hairspray my mom had laquered onto my head. She was looking out for her nerdy daughter’s best interests, but even in the Eighties, I knew big hair was a bad idea.
I don’t like picture day any better as an adult.
Fussing with kids who REALLY want to wear that Pokemon shirt.
Realizing you should have gotten their hair trimmed a couple weeks ago.
Paying too much money for boring, awkward pictures that you’re just going to hide in a drawer.
And then there were those years we couldn’t afford to spend money on portrait packages, but how do you explain to your kids that you don’t WANT those cheesy, bland-tastic pictures of their precious faces?
Now is the part where I should insert some pithy spiritual insight about image, or where we get our identity, or whether we’re candid and honest about our walk with Christ, or living lives that rememble “school pictures”–affecting a fake, smily spirituality for watching eyes.
But really, I just wanted to whine about picture day.
“It probably has something to do with that truly horrible portrait from eight grade, and the hated stink of hairspray my mom had laquered onto my head. She was looking out for her nerdy daughter’s best interests, but even in the Eighties, I knew big hair was a bad idea.”
Oh, dear! I need to see that photo! LOL. Glad we all survived…
I’m sure there are some doozies from 7th and 8th grade packed away in dark recesses of your house somewhere–and they should probably stay that way!
Gosh, I remember being crabby and fussing at you about ANY formal picture-taking activity from about 1o-13! And maybe earlier–wanting parasols when I was little, crabbing about french braids in 4th grade, crying and trying to refuse to be in photos for support letters–ha! Glad we survived, indeed! But at least I didn’t make faces, like Drew. 
Gail, we want pictoral evidence. Jen’s public is clamoring!
Those cheap plastic combs! I remember the teeth braking off as I tried to drag it through my hair, standing there in line waiting for my turn in front of the camera. I NEVER combed my hair as a kid, so the teeth-braking was probably due more to the natural resistance my hair had developed over time than it was to the deficiencies of the cheap comb.
You want spiritual insight coming from picture day? How about this one: God has numbered the very hairs on your head, even those that are lacquered into place, haven’t seen a comb since the last picture day, or are standing straight up in that double cow-lick you’ve got going in the back.
Tim