You'd think in this time we call "nowadays", getting an image of yourself would be a simple thing. Just hold up your device and click a button, right? Well, you'd be right if you didn't suffer the circus-like limitations of confinement. In here, we’ve devolved to analog.
Allow me to explain.
In order to acquire said hardcopy at my residence, an individual must purchase what is unimaginatively referred to as a photo coupon. This process involves logging into an app most assuredly engineered during the heyday of AOL as even its keypad for PIN entry suffers from knuckle biting lag and it's UI is atrociously proportioned.
Once the Test Of Patience And Perception has been passed, it only takes a few moments to decipher the coupon's location amidst the various headings. It's under "Miscellaneous" and costs $1.08, including tax. You may purchase only five at a time.
After wrestling that keypad again, our order rests until the day of collection or "Post" in commissary parlance. Days between posting and delivering are approximately four in number and are always subject to delays incurred by weekends and holidays. Days between delivery dates average about twelve.
On the day of delivery, one must wait to see which side of your living structure will be up first. It's always a gamble and one never bet upon for it's a sure loss, regardless of whatever your preferred method of divination may be.
When the commissary personnel calls for IDs (how else would they know which brown paper sack belongs to who?) there's this maddened rush to be included in this rotation's delivery because if you don't get it now, GASP! something will happen and you'll NEVER get it.
Except you will. In just a few more moments, Brad. Sit down and STFU, no one wants to hear about how you're always last when you practically ran over the wheelchair guy just to hand the poor store guy your tag. Dick.
Anyway.
Once you've inventoried and signed for your order, you discover your "coupon" is really just a red stamp on your receipt that reads, you guessed it, "Photo Coupon". Hooray!
Where the hell do I redeem this thing? And when?
Ho-ho, my friend! You can do that over at the gym, of course and it's on the third Friday of the second week, during a harvest moon, kissed by faeries and fruit bats. At least, that's as much sense as I could glean from the flier posted beneath the stairs of my domicile.
I just punted and set an email stating "Sign me up for next available photo time" and kept an eye on the daily callouts for a month.
When my name DID appear on the schedule, some three weeks later, I reported to the gym and found a crowd of no less than sixty people crammed in a hall rated for a third of that number and a foul mouthed troll directing traffic and camera protocols.
No selfies. No flexing. No rolled up sleeves. No this, that, or WTF is happening?! None of these rules are real, but to argue is to lose and to lose is to leave with no photograph. Welcome to prison.
Yes, Miss Troll, of course, Miss Troll, let me grit my teeth instead of telling the Billy Goats Gruff where you've moved to, Miss Troll and grant me my graven images, three please.
Wait. What? I have to come back and get them at some OTHER time? Can't you just deliver them to the unit like every other place?!
Fine. I'll be back in a few weeks to pick up my blurry, sanctioned-pose pics and drop them in the mail where they may or may not be sent out sometime in the next month.
I'm only smiling on the outside here. I promise. 😊 In the end, the picture still turned out fuzzy. Only the best.