Just too damn nice

Last week was a busy week. That's not really an excuse, because my definition of "busy" is just plain damn relaxing for most people. But we had something every day, and I was under the weather the first part, yadda yadda yadda.

Monday I picked up Zane's one-year portraits from Penney's portrait studio. We've gone every month for a year for a little portrait and they have been fantastic every month. And cheap. Don't forget, cheap!

My only complaint has been that it takes two weeks or more until the pictures are available. Not a big problem for cheap pics, I guess.

At the one-year sitting I learned that they are still using a film camera there and they were just about to change over to digital. WTF? I mean, are they still in the Dark Ages or what? Anyway. . .we got our pretty decent pictures (not exactly what I wanted but I had some lofty ambitions for the one year photo) and went on our way.

When I picked up that actual portraits it was a ZOO! They were doing all these free sittings to train people on the brand new digital system. There were people and babies hanging from the rafters.

So when I peeked at Z's photos and they were HORRIBLE. BLURRY. GRAINY. AB-SO-LUTE-LY UN-AC-CEP-TA-BLE! They were really too busy to deal with me.

Nice photo lady suggested I pick a different pose. (Um. NO!) Or that I schedule another sitting. (UM, HELL's NAW! Since their pick-up time is SO FREAKIN' DELAYED he's now almost 13 months old and looks COMPLETELY DIFFERENT than he did at one year.)

Okay, so maybe I was overreacting, I thought.

I took my photos and was nice about it and was sure that only I would be able to tell since I'm the mom and the budding, not-quite-amateur-photographer-who's-read-too-much-Scott-Kelby-and-thinks-she-can-take-some-decent-photos.

That night when the DH looked at them he was all: "Um. . .they're blurry."

I was devastated.

What was my recourse? What could I do?

I called and tried to talk to someone who could answer my questions but since they had just changed over the system, they could not even access my files. Sigh.

And now it's a week later, and they're kinda like: "Well, lady, you took your photos home. We could do something if you hadn't accepted them, but. . ."

And they're right. I have waited too long. But I should have done something.

'Cause now all I have are 11 months of really quite good pictures and the twelfth month of really quite shitty picture. For posterity. Great. Sort of undoes all the neatness of the monthly portrait thing (which, by the way, my MIL did with the DH and his baby book is really cool with all those 8X10s).

Anyway. . .I was not sure I was going to slam the actual store/studio by naming them, but I decided to do so. Honestly, I would recommend them to other people now that they are digital and there should be more improvements and faster turnaround time. Hell, I'm even planning to take him there for his 15-mo portrait again (close, cheap, easy).

I'm just pissed that MY BABY'S ONE YEAR PORTRAITS ARE NOT PERFECT!!!

I'm even scanning it in to show you. Of course, the scanning makes it look like total crap, but you get the picture. And, yes, that is a real honest-to-goodness cupcake that I made.

So I'm totally burned up that they are not perfect, but every day that goes by I'm more desensitized to how imperfect they are. I even put them out in picture frames this weekend. Of course, they look worse next to the previous month's AWESOME picture, but whatevs.

I can still be pissed off, but I guess this is one of those times I just have to let it go and let "mediocre" be fine. Especially considering the odds of how many months we took portraits; how many were good (11/12); and how few problems we had with the studio prior to this (none).

See! I'm TOO DAMN NICE! I KNEW I would do this! Start off with a blazing tired and end up apologizing for the offending party!

Damn. I know myself too well.

I'm still pissed.