Remember these pictures? I hate them too. HATE!

My kids are having school pictures taken tomorrow. It's not the first time of course, but, every time it comes around it reminds me of when I had to go through that horrendous shit. It always seemed to catch me by surprise. Like polio. I never could remember the day that shit went down. So, the day of I'd get up throw on the same raggedy Megadeth shirt I always threw on, get to school and find everyone dressed like the damned Hitler youth. Well, not in a hate mongering, Jew killer way, just clean cut...and jack booted. 

Seig Heil and smile!

Ill prepared, I was shuffled through the line in the auditorium, up onto stage where part of my soul was stolen by the white man using his image capturing box of mystery. The man or woman taking the pictures could give less than a diarrheal squirt as to who fuck I was. Sitting on the ill constructed black box in front of the fake autumn background you felt like an asshole. Yeah, what was with that? On what planet does everyone's school picture look like it was taken in Vermont during the fucking leaf changing season? They should have just taken it in front of a picture window and shown the realism of the moment! They could have called it "Ghetto School Child In Desolate Repose"...number fuck you. 

Now that's a school picture background, dammit!

Ah, but, they were a necessity, more for parents sake than ours, at the time. Later, down the road you realized that they offered a unique opportunity for a kind of time travel into your childhood. The inevitable "I can't believe I looked like that" surfaces and you reminisce...about all the times you held in a HUGE dump because you REFUSED to use the dirty ass school bathroom. Ah, memories. That's what those pictures are all about, right? Well, they used to be anyway. Now, as a parent, they become photographic extortion on an yearly basis. Who the fuck do these photographers think they are? I remember how the bastards worked! They sat there...mostly, pushing a button. Then, saying, "Next.", while secretly wanting to put a gun in their mouth, just to quiet the growing burden of a voice, that can't quite come to terms with the cancellation of the Ricki Lake show. It wasn't THAT fucking hard. In fact, they usually had some kiss ass, brown nosing, student equivalent of a trustee helping them out, taking papers, putting them in the "death box" to be filed and possibly hunted down later...and want not. No, I'm kidding about the "death box"...I hope. So, apparently, it wasn't ball breaking work. They avidly partook in child labor to ease their labors even more...and didn't bat an eye about it. All they did was press a button. They barely gave a shit that you were there...unless you made a weird face...then, they grabbed a baseball bat and went to work. 

Why you little fucking bitch! 

YOU WANNA PLAY GAMES?! 

WE CAN PLAY GAMES!

Why are we suckered into buying this bullshit for way too fucking much every year? Wait. Ohhh...now they do it TWICE a year. So, "professional photography rape"...it's not just for autumn anymore! They take fall AND spring pictures, just in the off chance your child shifted genders or suddenly decided to change races mid year. What a crock of shit. They don't even grease up their fist before they, "go-a-plungin'. Full bore. Here's a clincher...the kind that might make your bowels seize up in money saving delight. What the fuck do you need those pictures for anyway? You have cameras EVERYWHERE. You have them in your phone, you probably have a digital camera stashed next to your rolling papers on top of that...what...that's where I keep mine. Don't judge! Regardless, you likely have a camcorder that will take pictures too. Try this...you can...as an experiment...whip out your junk...spin in a circle real fast...piss...and chances are, before you've finished whizzing...you've peed on at least two cameras. People are constantly filming, shooting, capturing, snapping...every-fucking-thing. Chances are you have a hundred pictures of your fucking kid on whatever you're viewing this blog on and that's only because you haven't had a chance to move them over to the thing that has four billion pictures of him on it. Do you need to pay some fuckhead to sit on his ass, clackin' away, when you could just as easily snap off a few and get them 8x10ed at Walmart in an hour's time and be done with it? What the fuck all is wrong with us?

We don't need no money, let that motherfucker burn! 

Burn motherfucker...BURN!

What I think the problem is, is nostalgia. You think back through the dark recesses of your mind to grand ol' picture day, when Mom made you wear the nicest clothes you had. You know, the one's without shit stains and Oreo drool down the front? Yeah, those. Then, you'd trot off to school, hand your picture packets with your parental check in it, line up and then off to the gym, to stand in line like prisoners waiting for an executioner. The whole time thinking, fuck, I hope I don't dick these up or my Mom will straight up and out...murder my ass. Finally, it's your turn, you muster up your best toothy smile and POP. There it is. The picture you'll never...ever want anyone to ever see again. 

Chad is a winner.

Can't we just let this shit go? We needed those photographers because they had specialized, fancy equipment that was a couple of hundred dollars out of people price ranges...twenty years ago. Now, you have all that fancy horseshit practically in your pocket. Now, I'm not knocking photographers in general, in fact, I know a couple of really good ones and if you have a talent for it, go with it. These guys, though technically photographers, can do this kind of work with little to no talent at all. It's basically free money. They don't even have to try. They set up an assembly line and the money rolls right in. They aren't doing ground breaking fucking work here! They're not fiddling with lenses looking for subject matter, doing light adjustments trying to get that one...great take. No. POP! Get the fuck out of here kid. Let these poor, mother fucking school photographers go the way of the dodo and disco already. Do you yearn to pay for some chump to deliver milk every morning or an ice guy to fill up your freezer everyday with ice? Hell no! Why pay for strange men to run their dirty, sexy hands over your milky juice and your cold...hard...water. It's kind of weird. Though, letting a strange guy take pictures of your kid...that's okay.  

What? If I'm comfortable the kids are comfortable. 

Don't judge me!