Smile!

My children actually attend the school where I teach, which has it advantages and disadvantages. The advantages are more influence over their education and more time with them even on nights when they sleep over at their mother's house. The disadvantages are some awkward moments in the halls and a distinct case of "staff kid" syndrome. One other small perk is that when picture day comes, the photographer lets us take a picture together, and always gives me a free eight-by-ten and some other smaller prints.

This year, like always, I took the kids out of their classes and down to the room where the pictures are taken. Unlike other years, it took over twenty attempts to get a shot that the photographer was pleased with. Either we weren't all completely in the frame, or there was too much shadow on someone, or someone was out of field, or someone wasn't smiling big enough - you know, like an insane evil doctor opening the Acme box containing his Oblitero-ray gun. There was a moment there when all three of our heads were pressed together, literally skin-to-skin and cheek-to-cheek. At that moment I was thinking, and I'm sure both of my kids were sharing my thoughts - literally the same neural impulses passing right through the flesh - just how much of a jerk would I look like if I just stood up and ended this? What if I just shouted, "Enough! I'm not looking for Ansel Adams here, just give me something I can stick to the fridge and let me go!"? Probably a big jerk.

So I sat as patiently as possible for another ten minutes and another six poses. "Let's try it with Dad standing and the kids seated," or "Let's try it with the kids standing and Dad kneeling next to them." And the thing that made me the most uncomfortable was not the time it took or the different poses. It was the constant manhandling. It's really my fault, I guess; I just had high hopes that the next time a woman touched my face that much, she wouldn't be forcibly manipulating it into contorted positions. Have you ever had a photographer move your chin so far down that you can't help but wonder, "Exactly how ugly am I when people have to take a picture of the very top of my head before they feel like it's a good shot?" Still, live and learn, right? What I learned is that next year, if I'm going to endure that much physical contact for that long, I'm going to make sure I get the younger, cuter photographer so that at least I can pretend it's a date.