The Photo Po-Po

Over this same period, we had been soliciting childhood photos from our bridal party, which would be displayed in black and white, in front of each person seated at the bridal table. After a month or so of reminders, we had accumulated six of the eight. The other two would be provided by Angie, who had strict guidelines on quality control for her image. We also had pictures of our parents, from their wedding days, that would be placed on the cake table.

I had six photos and two digital scans that I needed to de-color, resize, and print, so I headed off to Wal-Mart. I performed the necessary cropping, converted to black and white, and clicked to process. Lab quality photos in about fifteen minutes. I entertained myself by trying to guess what was behind me by smell. I returned to the photo station and received the news that only three of my pictures could be printed due to professional photographer copyright issues. The Photo Po-Po had set up shop at Wal-Mart and were barricading my way to smooth wedding task completion. Two were obvious studio portrait shots. I didn’t force the issue here. Another was an obvious school photo which, even without the gold seal of professionalism, shall not be reproduced without express written consent.

The first of the two held up for no good reason was my parents’ wedding shot, which had to have been taken by a professional, since it was a wedding. The MG had, during a previous wedding-photo-viewing event, explained how they had let one of my dad’s friends shoot their wedding. It was one of the dumbest things they had ever done, as his work was unprofessional and more and more intoxicatedly blurry, as the evening wore on. I offered to call my mom for the Po-Po to speak to regarding the facts in this case, but he said that would not be necessary.

The second photo giving him reason to pause was of me on a Big Wheel, in the middle of our blacktop driveway. It somehow gave the illusion, in black and white, of a curtain. I admit it could have been my very professional approach to having my photograph taken when I was three. I would use Blue Heat, my signature gaze for picking up ladies at day-care. Come on, you’re taking your job too seriously.

“It will be fifteen minutes to process them,” he said.

Curses! I have already taken hours off my life by inhaling the secondhand stench of rolled-back prices, and now you are unnecessarily extending my exposure. I need to be off to a less discerning photo lab, where copyrights are as meaningless as customer service. Twelve minutes later, I was headed to Walgreens.

At Walgreens, I headed to the photo center machine with the scanner. It was now after five, and the photo expert had surely left for the day, leaving a wonderful, copyright-unaware associate to staff the center at her convenience. I scanned away and submitted two of the last three. The finish line was near. I edited the last and submitted. I looked around expectantly for ten minutes. Finally I went to the cashier and interrupted her personal phone call to ask when I could expect my pictures to be ready. She paged a photo technician to the station. Five minutes later, the photo tech, who was apparently a lower ranking associate, arrived.

“How long will it be until my photos are ready?” I asked.

“The print machine is down. You’ll have to come back tomorrow, once the tech has serviced it,” she replied.

Holy Mother of all that is crap! I believe I heard “tech” when they paged you.
- Drew Lloyd
From "Will You?" to "I Do.": A Groom's Tale of Survival