I don't want to brag, but I've always thought of myself as, well, a
fairly educated person. I know how to set a thermostat, program a VCR
and work a computer by myself. I can, for the most part, balance a
checkbook, pump my own gas and make a mean egg plant casserole.
But, no matter how hard I try, I can't figure out the local drug
store's system for processing film.
OK, OK. Some of you, more savvy types, are probably thinking, "What's
the big deal, Lady? You go to the counter, fill out the envelope, slip
it into the slot and Viola! A spider monkey could do it."
Others of you (and you know who you are) know EXACTLY what I mean.
You're the kind of person who charges into the photo section with gobs of
finished rolls of film, pulls out an envelope and then immediately
faints dead away on the floor. Suddenly you, a person who graduated Suma
cum laude, can't figure out which box to mark. Or what kind of film you
have. Or why you're wearing blue sandals with red skirt. Or where you
stand on the whole Harrison Ford dating Calista Flockhart issue. In
fact, you're no longer sure of anything anymore.
And don't bother asking me why this happens because, well, I don't
know. But I have a feeling it has something to do with all of the choices.
I admit, whenever I'm given anything more than three choices my whole
system shuts down.
Like the other day when I went to drop off my film at the local
drugstore, I was immediately surround by approximately thirty-two tiny yellow
signs, all with various, reasonable sounding, options. Do I want one
day service or two? Double prints or CD disk? Advantage or Advanced
film process? How about twelve single 5x7's? Or Twenty-four 3x5 triple
prints? Color or black and white? And on and on.
There was a weary-looking lady next to me surrounded by a pile of
envelopes, each with almost everything crossed out. I immediately relaxed
because I knew I was in the company of another hopelessly confused
person.
"I can't believe this is so hard," she turned to me. "Just when I
finally got the hang of buying panty hose."
I was in complete sympathy.
In fact, I thought back to the good old days when getting film
developed meant putting your 110 cartridge into an envelope with your name
scrawled on it. But clearly, this was no longer something so be taken so
lightly. Now-a-days if you make one wrong mark you could end up with
something very, very bad. Like the time my friend Julie thought she
marked single 5x7 prints and she same home with fifty-seven dollars worth
of color slides. And she doesn't even own a slide projector.
I admit it's times like this that I envy my friend Shirley, who's gone
digital. The only problem is that she has everything from the birth of
her son to his seventh birthday party stuck inside of her camera. At
last count, she has approximately 7000 pictures in there. But, hey, at
least she knows where she stands.
But getting back to my point. After much discussion of size and
processing and all that we decided three important things: 1) you should not,
under any circumstance, just mark everything on the envelope and see
what happens, 2) Harrison Ford dating Calista Flockhart is just plain
wrong, and 3) the best thing to do is to choose the section with the 3x5
double prints in color.
We marked our envelopes and slid them through the slot. Then we stood
around for a moment and swapped picture-developing horror stories before
going our separate ways.
And I'd like to tell you that everything turned out OK, but it didn't.
Oh sure, I got what I ordered, but when I picked up my film I had 24
double prints of several tiny blurry images that could've either been my
family or squirrels and one particularly colorful picture of my thumb.
