The Head Shot

I felt like a contortionist in a scene from The Exorcist. The photographer made me turn my body down-stage with my shoulders and head turned up-stage. "Ouch!  This hurts!" I objected.

"Stop whining and tilt your head 37 degrees South East," the Nazi photographer demanded.

I've never been a fan of head shots. I suppose it all stemmed from years and years of horrible class pictures growing up. In 13 years of schooling, I never had a good one.

"Hey carrot top...nice picture," the boys would tease. 

It's even worse when you combine my lack of photgeneity (I made that word up) with my predisposition for passive aggressive bug-eye behavior. You see, when I get frustrated my eyes react.  Big time. 

I can't help it.  

My eyes expand in perfect correlation to my level of frustration.

You should have seen my drivers license photo taken on Good Friday in 1992 when the Milwaukee D.M.V. was closing at noon and the line wrapped around the room 3 times and the one woman unlucky enough to be working that morning kept ignoring me. 

I looked like Marty Feldman by the time she snapped the picture.

But on a positive note, it provided hours of entertainment at family gatherings over the next 4 years. "Hey Lou! Show Uncle Buck your license. I don't think he's seen it"

"Holy crap!" Buck said, in admiration.  "How'd you do that?"

Then there's that photo on my work ID. The security camera woman told me to step up to the line and smile. Click.

"Can I see it?" I asked as she pulled it up on her full screen. I took a look. "Oh, would you mind taking another one?"

Click. I look. "I'm sorry, would you take another one please? I don't like the way my eyes look."

Tsk. Click. I look. "One more?"

"Uh, Lou. This is how you look."

So, considering my lifetime of bad pictures, I shouldn't have been surprised when I opened the email from the photographer containing my head shot.

I screamed.

"I DIDN'T KNOW I HAD WRINKLES ON MY NECK!" Are you stinkin' kidding me?

But guess what! I just had a neck life. And a face tuck. And botox.

It's called Photo Shop. And that Nazi photographer is a stinkin' genius.

I just have one question.

Where was she when I was in 1st grade? 

I so could have used her.