Picture Day

Today was picture day at my school.

I don't like picture day. Picture day is bad. Creepy photographers follow you around all day and take pictures of you doing things at school, as if that's interesting. When it comes time for you to take your yearbook picture, they give you no freedom at all. You have to pose just right for them to take the picture. Half the reason it takes so long is because the photographers have to seat you, to the milimeter, to their liking.

"Sit further back."

"Not that far."

"No, further."

"Okay, now put all of your hair over your shoulders."

"Less hair. Good."

"Turn your head to the side a little."

"More."

"MOAR."

"EVEN MOREEEEE."

"Less."

"Fix your hair again."

"Smile."

"Smile big!"

"SMILE GOSHDARNIT."

"I. SAID. SMILE. YOU PLASTER A GIANT, GOOFY GRIN ON YOUR FACE THIS MOMENT OR THERE WILL BE CONSEQUENCES."

" NOW DANCE. DANCE LIKE THE WIND. I WANNA SEE THOSE ARMS MOVING!"

It may not have been this dramatic, but that is what it felt like to me. By the end of the picture, I probably looked like this:



I don't like those photographers who take pictures of you doing things either. I don't want to be in and end-of-the-year slide show when my face is all contorted with concentration or anxiety for fear of the stalking photographer as my face tends to be in those kinds of pictures.. Here's an example of a picture that will probably end up on said slideshow:



The picture guy was like, right in front of me. It was creepy. I don't like being followed/photographed by strangers. Please refrain from doing so.

Happiness in a Bottle

Today, my mom returned from the grocery store with a bottle of "coconut milk drink". The top of the lid read "Happiness in a Bottle". When my mom peeled off the plastic covering to see what the drink actually looked like (it was in a glass bottle), we were all disgusted. This was part of the conversation that followed:

Me- ... What is that?

Mom- Coconut juice.

Me- It looks like barf.

Mom- It says it's "happiness in a bottle".

Me- More like someone ate happiness, semi-digested it, and regurgitated it back into a bottle.

Mom- .....

Little Brother- *pushes plate away* I've lost my appetite.

Inside the bottle was the visual equivalent of what I smelled inside the Essence of Cow jar. The milk was semi-transparent and white tinted, like what I imagine stomach fluid to look like. Small chunks of suspicious-looking matter floated around inside the liquid. I assumed it was pieces of coconut, though it looked closer to a piece of chicken that someone had started to chew and then spit back out in disgust. I decided that it was so disgusting that it deserved to be blogged about, so I set to work getting a picture of the bottle.

My mom walked up from behind me and said something along the lines of, "No, no, no. Your camera is blurry because the light is wrong. You need to go somewhere brighter and use a darker background. Your blog will suck if the picture is wrong."

I was appalled. "My blog is about the writing, not the pictures," I replied.

She shook her head, grabbed the bottle and my camera, and walked upstairs. I followed her into the bathroom.

We proceeded to have a large-scale photoshoot for the bottle of regurgitated happiness.

The lights were turned on until they were blindingly bright, and the bottle was set in front of a dark towel. We even got an LED flashlight to illuminate the chunks. We took dozens of photos and spent more time than necessary deliberating over which one was the best. That was when we discovered that the flashlight had a strobe feature.

We spent the next few minutes filming the coconut juice under the strobe light as if it were at a rave, trying our bet not to laugh or shake the camera. Here are the results of our glamor shoot:

While I was viewing the results, my mom picked up the bottle, dumped it in the toilet, and took pictures of the chunks sinking to the bottom, giggling wildly the whole time. I feel this drink was appropriately named because, though we didn't dare drink it, it did bring us much happiness tonight.