Photo Developing Land

I just saw an ad for a Newborn posing beanbag.  Since when are beanbags such posers?  I thought they originated fully grown.  It took me a while to understand that someone manufactures beanbags specifically for newborn human babies to lie on and pose for baby photos and they sell these beanbags for about 80bucks.

Things were going very smoothly in photo developing land.  The on-screen prompts were easy to follow, the machine accepted my USB drive and it gave me a receipt.  The instructions on the receipt indicated that I go to the 'Electrical Cashier'.  At first I thought I would get to meet a robotic sales assistant but to my dismay there were normal checkout chicks whose main sales are of electrical appliances.  They also process other purchases like photos and frames.  I was assured I was in the right place and I paid my 35cents.

One music lesson in primary school we were taught a song:

"Left, Left, I left my wife in New Orleans
with 45cents and a can of beans
and I thought it was
Right, Right, Right for my country
Whoopseedoo."

We had to march on the spot to keep time, starting with our left foot and stamping it each time we said "left".  When we got to the final line we had to do "a bit of a gallop" (which was really just a step ball change) in order to be leading on our left foot for the word "left" as we repeated the song.  Considering I had done dance lessons and could do a step ball change, the "Whoopseedoo" bit was nothing special to me but most of the other children had considerable difficulty with the timing or the swapping of feet or the combination of the two.


We progressed from marching on the spot to walking at speed in a circle.  The more we marched and galloped, the more I got confused about how to swap from my left foot to my right when the stress went from left to right on the first "Right". 

Eventually I figured out that I had to stop thinking about it because I was naturally swapping to my right by continuing to walk.  Way back then I was overthinking things and if I'd just chilled out a bit I would have known that I didn't even need to TRY in order to "swap" from left to right.

As I was saying, I paid my 35cents and the Electrical Cashier instructed me to hand in my receipts at the Photo Centre a few metres away.

On the desk of the 'Photo Centre'.

I actually waited there for a couple of minutes, along with another lady, before I went back to the Electrical Cashier.  The Electrical Cashier then accompanied me back to the Photo Centre, took my receipts and told me there were other orders in front of mine so I needed to return in half an hour.  All the while I stared at the sign.  Surely the Electrical Cashier would have seen me walk the 5 metres to the Photo Centre and stand there before grovelling back to her so she could return with me.

When I came back in half an hour I received my photo and asked if I could have some cardboard so the photo wouldn't bend.  The Photo Centre guy tried to give me a flimsy piece of card but I wanted my full 35cents worth.  I asked if he had any scraps of cardboard from "perhaps...a cardboard box" because he was just about drowning in boxes of unpacked stock.  He caught on quickly, after saying he didn't think he had any cardboard.  He thought I was a genius.  I don't mean I think he thought I was a genius.  He actually said "You're a genius." with great awe.

He ripped off a piece of cardboard for me and asked if it was the right size when it was clearly twice as long as my photo and when he realised I wanted to put it behind the photo inside the photo envelope he was astounded.  "You're a thinker!" he exclaimed.  Then he trimmed the frayed edges which he called "frills" so I ended up with a no frills piece of cardboard.  As he was trimming the scrap of cardboard I expressed that perhaps he was trying to look busy because he had no work to do and if he liked he could colour in my piece of cardboard.  He said he would be delighted and his crayons were just out the back but I was happy with the neutral cardboard colour of my cardboard.

I took my photo of my Dad home and put it in a frame next to the photos of my Mum, my sister and me.