Of Obituary & Profile Pictures

When I used to live at home, and peruse my parent's newspaper I remember chuckling at the images on the obituary page. I certainly was not laughing at the deceased, but was amused at the accompanying photograph. I wondered if Beatrice Bomberger who had passed had hand selected the photo at one point in the past, choosing the imageof 'her best self' that she wanted to be remembered by. It mattered not that it might have been a forty-eight year old picture with ten inch high hair. And that was what made me chuckle...

And then just the other day, it struck me: Golly gee whiz...I do this too!

I'm not so morbid as to be picking out an obituary picture, but there is that 'new' thing called 'Facebook' and within it, a potentially deceiving little corner called 'Profile Picture'.

Sure, I guess it is natural to put one's 'best face forward', so to speak...but

when the difference is so dramatic, I have to wonder if it's possible to be slapped with a charge of 'false marketing' or identity theft by the Facebook Police.

I present you with Exhibit A and Exhibit B...

                                                        

 Exhibit A:

 If you were to Google "Frumpy Housewife", this would surely be the first of 20,132,658 images to pop up. This particular scene was shot at NOON of a random weekday. The subject was sipping cold tomato soup left over by the lunch crew that had just left the table. She is sporting her favorite, tattered Target night shirt, paired with a Calvin Klein hand-me-down sweatshirt (she's just all class, isn't she?) AND to polish the look off, a pair of white, cuffed SOX (this word was creatively invented by a dear friend who saw this picture and was trying to push 'sexy' and 'socks' into one word, naturally). If you were to knock on her back door at any given day at any given time, you would be hard pressed to find that woman, if you were expecting this one:





 

Exhibit B:

Photo taken at a special event (sister's bachelorette party) by photographer/cousin with a super-dee-duper-dee camera  (Barney, get thee behind me!!!), at which subject knew that her sister's young, cute friends would be in attendance and took extra care to apply/do the following items: Shower, shave, pluck, spray L'Oreal Sublime Bronze all over body (twice), generously apply Bare Essentuals all over face (and perhaps neck), pluck, pencil in eyes and lips, apply volume-enhancing hair product (not that she need it. See Exhibit A {ahem}), pluck, dry hair, tease hair, curl hair, spray hair, brush teeth, apply lipstick and a dash of perfume.
Simple as that.

***

Someday, if I run into Beatrice Bomberger in Heaven, I'll give her a little knowing smile and say 'Hey! I know you! You look JUST like your obit picture, Beat!!".  And someday, if you knock at my back door anywhere from 7AM to 7PM, please hide your shock and refrain from asking if you've got the right house. Just smile, don't breath through your nose (shower/teeth brushing aren't necessarily guaranteed) and come on in!