I’m dreading this.  I not only detest having my picture taken, I detest having my picture taken by this guy, the guy who takes the pictures for the local attorney directory.  I’m still living down the last one he took of me, the one where my hair resembles Diana Ross during the disco era and my teeth are doctored so it looks like someone spilled a jar of Wite-Out over them. 

I check my hair in the rear-view mirror of my truck before heading into the studio.  Wavy helmet, check.  The problem with getting my attorney photo taken is that, although I graduated from law school, although I passed the bar exam, although I send scary letters and stand before a judge and argue my case, somehow I still don’t *look* like an attorney.  The chronic cat-hair presence on my suit is a factor.  But my hair is the best clue that I’m no Ruth Bader Ginsburg.  See, most female attorneys you know have sensible bobs, or darling pixies, or slick buns.  My hair, um, well — Diana Ross, disco era.  So on attorney photo day, I plaster it with hairspray until it resembles the best I can do — a wavy helmet.

Wavy helmet intact, I cruise the elevator to the studio.  “I noticed you’ve been using some snapshot of yourself with a tree behind you in the last couple of directories,” the photographer asks first thing. 

Who, me?  Use a photo my neighbor took of me in my backyard because it looks a zillion times better than the photo of Wite-Out girl?  “Hmmmm.  Must be someone else,” I mumble.

“The one where your hair is much darker?”

“Um, maybe.  Not sure.  So, where do you want me?”

“Stand right there and I’ll just test the lighting.”  I stand on the taped “X” and practice resembling an attorney.  Think attorney.  Think attorney.  “Ready,” he announces, then raises his eyebrows.  “Oh, but do you want to check your hair first?”

“My hair?  Oh, no.  I just checked it outside.”

“But are you sure you don’t want to check your hair first?”

“Do I need to check my hair?”

“Yes, I think you’ll feel better.  There’s a sort of…odd flip, some fly-aways, not really cooperating…”

“Oh, well, do you have a mirror?”

“No, let me show you the way to the women’s bathroom.”

Of all the humiliating…I follow him and enter the women’s bathroom, imagining that my hair must have been blown by a breeze into some crazy cowlick.  I look in the mirror, expecting a horrific…

Wavy helmet.  Exactly the same as when I left it.

I spot a can of Aqua Net (true story, really) on the counter, the kind in the aerosol can like in 1978 (the kind Diana Ross likely wore).  I spray a thick layer over the wavy helmet until it’s…a particularly hardy wavy helmet.  And march back into the studio.

“Much better,” he says.  “You’ll be ever so glad you did that.  Two things I like about being a photographer: One, I get to stare at people.  And two, I get to critique their appearances.  Har har.”

I take my place back on the “X.”

“Now, then, I typically take three different angles.  Side, front, side.”  He snaps a batch of photos from my best side.  “Hmmm.  I’m guessing another angle will be your best side.  And…” he stares at me for a minute, assessing, frowning.  “Let’s skip the middle angle.  Maybe the other side?” 

I obediently flip to my other side, hoping to expedite the process. 

“Now, if you could smile.  I notice you have this…naturally worried look when you don’t smile.”

My mouth flips into a frown and my eyebrows squeeze together into a worried grimace.  Snap!

“Okay, let’s take a look at what we have.”  He pulls up the shots on his computer and flips through them so I can pick my faves.  Gaaaa!  Gaaaaaaaa!  GAAAAAAAA!  Each is scarier than the next.  “Don’t worry, I’ll touch these up,” he assures.  “For example, I’ll get rid of that deep wrinkle across your neck.  That pimple on your chin, too.”

That night he sends me my top pick, the touched-up version, in case I want to buy it for personal use.  I open it, and a worried helmet-head Amy stares back at me, only my face is extra deathly pasty (but not a wrinkle or a pimple in sight).  GAAAAAAAAAAAAAA! 

I dash off an email to the photographer.  “I’d like to stick with the current snapshot of me, the one where I’m posing in front of a tree.”

“Hello, I need a passport photo, please?” I smile at the lady with the Walgreens nametag and the permafrown.

She pulls down a white screen. “Stand in front of this.”

I obey, smoothing my bangs and wondering if I should have come on a day when my hair was washed, glossed, straightened, and curled.

“Do you need this photo for a real passport?” she asks.

“Er, yes.” I’m not sure why else I would spend money on a “passport” photo.

“Then you can’t smile in the picture.”

I laugh, because she must be joking, and because I’m easy to laugh and, for that matter, easy to smile. 

She, who is clearly the opposite, cracks neither laugh nor smile nor even smirk nor grin. “I’m dead serious.”

“But I have to use this thing for the next ten years. They’ll never let me back in the country.”

“Are you ready?” she says, deadpan, ignoring my flair for humor.

I try to eliminate all traces of hilarity from my face, which only makes me laugh over the hilarity of it all. “Can you just count to three, and then I’ll not smile on three?”

“No. Because people naturally smile on three. Are you ready?”

I snicker. I giggle. I laugh. I try harder, bending the corners of my mouth into a deep frown with my fingers. “Ready,” I say through closed lips, already feeling the giggle building. “Hurry.”

Click.

“Ba ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!” my giggle erupts like long-held breath. “Did you get it without me smiling?”

“Yes. Come back in thirty minutes and it will be ready.”

Thirty minutes later I arrive back at the photo counter, my arms stuffed with wasting-time-at-Walgreens goodies such as the latest People magazine (dying to see Carrie Underwood’s wedding photos), a movie-candy-size box of Mike & Ike’s, sparkly nailpolish in boysenberry, and extra-strength Drano. “How did it come out? Do I look glamorously serious and important?”

“No. But it’s almost average. Anyway, no one likes their passport photo.”

Uh oh.

I don’t look at it until I get outside the store.

“Ba ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!”