I find my holiday cheer at K-mart

Right now I was supposed to be out finishing my last holiday errands, but instead I am sitting at home waiting for someone to please come give us the gift of hot water. Not that I am complaining - I am actually amazed that (hopefully) someone is coming today, and that a week from now I'm not emailing (we don't get a phone number) our landlord saying, "hey, um, remember how I said that we don't have any warm water? And you said that thanks for letting you know and that you'd call someone? um, well, is that going to happen? You know, anytime soon? If it's not too much trouble?"
Cause that's how it usually goes.

So, instead of using this time to wrap gifts, or clean my house, or think about one of the myriad ways I could make myself a better person this year, I'm going to share some photos with you! Isn't that great news?

And here is why: A few weeks ago a good friend of mine opened an account on a popular networking site - we'll just call it facebook. And because she doesn't have a computer, or digital photos, I offered to put up a photo of her for her account. And she said sure, and so I did. About a week later, I get an email with this subject:
"TAKE THAT PICTURE OFF RIGHT NOW!!!!!!"
It had been followed with another email that said, "Never mind, I don't need you. I replaced it myself and changed my password so that you can't ruin my life anymore."

Now, this person has known me for a long, long time, and frankly, I was surprised that she didn't see this coming. Especially since I told her what I had in mind. Sure, she did mention something about a "normal picture" - but she should know me better than that. I think that it's unfortunate that she's denying the rest of the world this photo, and since I am cut off from her account, I'll just put it here instead. Everybody wins.

A little background story now:
Several years ago, this friend and I were roommates, and one Christmas we realized that for the first time, all of our cards contained photos! Of couples. Couples in cute poses. Sometimes hugging each other and their dogs at the same time. There were no babies yet at this time in our lives, but she did get one card with a copy of a sonogram photo.

When another friend of ours heard that we were going to be living together, she said something like, "You and Jennifer? You guys are going to move in together and never leave." This was my friend's worst nightmare, but we decided to play on our Laverne & Shirley reputation and go to K-mart for a Christmas photo together! We tried to wear matching shirts (red and dark purple-red seems to be the best we could do, for some reason), and we tied matching bows around our head, and off we went.

Now, this seemed like a funny idea until we walked into K-mart and had to face the people that take their jobs very seriously, as well as the people who were waiting to get their child's photo taken (they all stared at us - all of them), and realized we couldn't say anything like, "We know we look stupid, that's the point! Your fake photo studio is ridiculous and so are we!" So we tried to be as respectful as we could, and sucked in the embarrassment.

Our turn in line came and we requested the backdrop of the living room with the Christmas tree and roaring fireplace, and Santa looking through the snowy window with his finger pressed to his lips, giving the viewer a wink, and a "shh! don't tell!" sign. But it seems that was meant for one small child, and not two large adults. They only had one Christmas background that was "family sized", so we had to go with that. Although we still seem to take up the whole thing. And they had props! We were delighted! Although they looked even more confused when we requested them. Here is the final product:



Does the fact that my head is twice as big as hers jump out at you like it does at me every time I see this? She says that she just has a small head, but I'm not so sure.

We were happy with our photo, and ready to pay up and leave, when suddenly they turned the game around on us.
"We have to do 6 more poses," they told us. No, no you don't - we only want the Christmas ones. "We have to do 6 more. It's part of the package."
It went back and forth like this for some time - basically, the point was that we got this good price on our cards if we let them show us all the other non-Christmasy photos they could take for us. They told us that we would get two of each of them with their package! They didn't seem to get that this did not matter to us.
As the discussion went on, my friend got more and more anxious. This was not part of the plan. This was not fun and funny. To her, this was just humiliating. She does not get angry easily, but that day my friends, the day she was told she would have to pose like all the toddlers there, well, let's just say she was fired up. She got angrier and angrier as she kept insisting, "But we're not going to buy any of them!" and no one cared. She ended up striking a deal with the poor people of K-mart - they would give us two 8*10's instead of 1, and she gave this a triumphant, "We get 2? Ok!" Before marching off. Moments later she realized what I had been wondering the whole time, "What are we going to do with 2 8*10's? We don't want any 8*10's!"

But we went through with it, and guess what? I have the results for you! They are very fair over there - we did 2 together, and 2 each by ourselves.
First, the brought out the carpeted block - the thing I associate with children's pictures from the '70's. I am laughing in my pic, but my friend has a steely smile. See, if you look closely enough, you can tell that she is really angry.



This is what I put in her account profile! Do you see how she could not like it? Me neither.

For our second backgrounds, they chose a "starry night" theme for us. What I find interesting looking back at these now is that we no longer have on our ribbons. Did we take them off thinking, "Hey, maybe this will be a good photo! One I want to frame and hang somewhere." I don't know.





Poor thing is still fighting it.

Then came our photos together:

Sexy, no?

And for the last photo, something strange happened - my friend turned around and really got into it! First she requested the white background with the bright paint splattered all over it - remember that look? My sister had some jeans like that in 1984. I don't know remember why, but we didn't get it. And then do you know what she did? When we got there a small girl was being photographed looking into a mirror. The photo was done so that you could see part of her face, and her entire reflection. My friend requested the mirror shot. The thing was, the mirror was not large enough to incorporate our big heads (our my big head, plus her small head), so they searched the store looking for a larger mirror. The line of waiting parents and children was held up because they wanted to make us happy with a mirror shot (way to go, K-mart employees!). In the end they couldn't find one, and we tried ours anyway.



And that is the story of my couples Christmas card. We found out that the people who we thought may not get it really did, and the people who we thought for sure would know it was a joke would leave us messages saying, "um, that was a cute card you sent out..." Ah, well.

You may - or may not have - noticed that I only put in one by myself. I'm not doing it on purpose - I really am laughing in it - I just don't have it scanned in like the rest. I will tell you that it came in handy though. Say, one day, you ask someone what they would like for a gift, and they suggest a photo of yourself. Naturally you think, "What I am going to do? Go pose and then wrap up a large image of my head in a frame? I don't think so." And then you remember that you already have a professional photo! And you have a bow on your head and everything! And then you make a frame yourself to pretty it up and add a personal touch. And you get something like this:



Now, who wouldn't be proud to own that? I know.

Hot water man is now 50 minutes past latest expected arrival time. I sure hope he's not going to make me do something productive.

Merry Christmas, all.