"I look like an escaped convict!"

Yesterday I got my picture taken for yet another id card. I am not sure why people can't just keep these things in their system (especially since the first picture I had taken for my new job actually looked good) and then use them for every id card, but whatever. I guess then I can just pull out whichever card best fits my mood for the day.

Anyway. I got my picture taken. When the guy taking the picture asked if it was ok, I said "yeah" after barely glancing at it. Because, well, when I was 16 and getting my first driver's license, the guy taking my picture took one but, after looking at it, I declared it unfit for humans to look upon and asked to have a different one (I think I was blinking or something). After he took the second one he said, "Honey, you aint gettin better than that!" (I think he left out both the "honey" and the "aint" because I was in Brigham City and not the deep South, but my time here has made me put a southern accent on all of my memories because they sound cooler that way.)

I was so mortified (was I always that ugly? What was he really saying about my appearance? What if I still looked horrible?) that I decided to never take a 2nd picture if at all possible.

Well. That works out sometimes (actually never) but it didn't work out this time. When the id card printed I was horrified to see that I looked like an escaped convict. My black-and-white shirt had also changed to a rainbow-colored shirt so something weird was going on with the printer, which made it only worse.  My shortness placed me below the camera so I was looking up at it, and the flash (and the printer) washed almost everything out of my face so it was almost like two eyes staring up out of a white abyss. Worst of all, I decided not to smile because my cheeks always look double size in smiling id card photographs.

Needless to say, I look incredibly creepy.

When I walked back to my office two of my coworkers wanted to see my picture. "I look like an escaped convict!" I said. "You do!" shouted one, while the other simultaneously tried to reassure me by saying, "No you don't." I laughed the hardest at their reactions. The one who thought I looked like I was an escaped convict said, "Well, it's because you aren't smiling. You look creepy."

And the card (an official government id) is good for 3 years. Maybe I will pull it out when I need an id that says, "I'm an escaped convict and super creepy!"