Pictures on the cheap

The other weekend we met my brother Ben and his wife, Sharon, at the nearest mall, primarily to take some family pictures in front of a convenient mall Christmas tree, at my Mom's request. A couple of years ago my wife dragged us all to Olan Mills for Christmas pictures, which turned out fantastic, but since we hadn't done that this year we would just have to get our pictures made...redneck style.

The malls around Atlanta are absolutely insane after Thanksgiving. People were being pushed and prodded along like cattle. I had to resist the temptation to moo. I don't like crowds of people, and I particularly dislike doing anything that would draw attention to myself in a crowd, like posing with my family in front of an arbitrary tree in the midst of the Christmastime chaos. I could just imagine people stopping to point, "Look ma! What're they doin' over there?"

But lo, what did mine eyes behold, but an almost vacant furniture store, populated with rich furnishings and tolerable Christmas decorations! We entered cautiously, expecting to be pounced on at any moment by a desperate salesperson to whom I would have to explain, "Uh...we just wanna take a picture in front of one of yer trees. Heh."

We found a nice leather couch, my family positioned ourselves appropriately, smiled, and I dragon-whispered to Ben through clenched teeth to hurry up, while my eyes scanned back and forth looking for that predatory salesperson. The women remained calm, laughing, pointing, chatting, moving in slow motion. Ben started snapping pictures while the women were still in mid-sentence, which for some reason they didn't like. On the outside I was smiling; on the inside I was shouting, "Do it! Do it now!" The shutter whirred and clicked, and now it was my turn to take Ben's family's picture. "Everybody up! Move move move! Positions everyone!"

I still didn't see the salesperson as I started to snap pictures. Renee was crying, and I was cropping the tops of their heads, but I kept snapping pictures until Monica issued a sharp reprimand, to which I responded, intelligently, "Oh".

Finally we were done and everyone was pleased. "Here, take the camera," I said to Ben, slipping the camera to him as if it were some sort of contraband.

So how did the pictures turn out? Did we do our families justice? To find out, you must take a little journey to Sharon's blog, to read the rest of the story.