There is a picture hanging on my refrigerator of my son, Clyde, that was taken in the third grade. It’s a school photo, which means that he looks like he has just burned down half the houses in our neighborhood and is only waiting to find a new lighter to burn down the other half. His eyes glint menacingly, he is not so much smiling as showing his teeth, and his skin looks like he has been chained up in a basement for the better part of the past year. In other words, it is a typical school photo.
I keep it on my fridge for two reasons. One, of course, is to make fun of Clyde. Because in our family, that’s just how it works: when something embarrassing—or even humiliating—happens to you, the rest of us tease you mercilessly about it forever and ever. No, we’re not trying to build moral character or teach the value of humility: we’re just mean like that. The second reason I still keep that photo on the fridge, though, is to remind myself why it is that I never, ever buy school photos.
I used to buy them every year. And every year I would open the envelope, look at the pictures, gasp in horror, and then stick those pictures in a drawer somewhere, where they will undoubtably remain until my children become so old that any photo of them taken before they are thirty is cherished simply as proof that they were once young.
Of course, just because I don’t buy the school photos doesn’t mean my kids don’t still have them taken. After all, they still need their pictures for yearbook, school IDs, nefarious government tracking purposes, and so on. And of course I’m still going to look at them, the same way I look at a wreck on the highway. And this year, when I looked at the results, I was kind of sorry I hadn’t bought a set.
They were that awful. Clyde’s weren’t really any worse than usual. He still had the serial arsonist look, but instead of looking like he had just burned down every house in the neighborhood he only looked like he had burned down one or two. For very select and obscure reasons. Like the color of the mailboxes. Clementine’s, on the other hand, were a whole new level of awful.
I’m not sure what happened. I think, maybe, that whoever was on hand with the “touch up” tool was feeling a little crazy. Or generous. Or just plain mean. Whatever the justification behind it was, the end result was that Clementine ended up with a nose worthy of La Streisand herself. It’s that big. And it’s not like it’s that big in real life, even on her worst day. Because, seriously, while it is entirely possible to have a “bad hair day,” no one, ever, has had to deal with a “bad nose day.” Until now.
My best guess is that they tried to “touch up” her various nose rings. And while the best way to get rid of a skin blemish might be to replace it with more (unblemished) skin, the best way to get rid of a nose ring is not to replace it with more nose.
Obviously.
Of course, like I said, I don’t know this for sure; since I didn’t actually buy the school photos it’s not like I have an 8 X 10 to work with or anything. No, there’s just the school ID. And maybe the enlarge function on a photocopier or two. Because, without something to hang on the refrigerator, how am I going to be able to tease her about it for years to come? After all, when it comes to prime family humiliation fodder, you know what they say: pictures or it didn’t happen.