This is Science.
Alright. So, I’m pretty sure most of you out there have jobs, coincidentally, so do I. For those of you who may not know, I work in a one hour photo lab developing peoples’ pictures….for the past five and a half years. So, I’m just gonna go ahead and come right out and say it that I’m pretty much an expert on photofinishing…..and I don’t mean like, I know alot about photography, and the chemical process that goes on in developing pictures or any of that technical shit. I’m talking about a major scientific study that is five and a half years in the making, laying out just what exactly the average person takes pictures of. It’s a breakthrough, and I’m right at the cutting edge. Whenever I end up telling someone where I work, it’s inevitable that at some point in the conversation the other person says something like, “Well, I bet you see some really interesting stuff, huh?… if you know what I mean….” And usually, I just give them the abbreviated answer of: “No….not really”.
But now you lucky readers have the chance to experience the full, unedited answer to that most popular question…..and what that question really is, whether the person asking it cares to admit it or not, is really “do you develop alot of pictures of attractive naked women?” Now I will put that question to rest, in this brilliant culmination of pure science and complete boredom. So here’s the breakdown:
PHOTOFINISHING
(a.k.a.- “your stupid fucking pictures”)
40% BABIES: I know, that seems pretty obvious and normal. But the one thing I can tell you is this-and I have to warn you, I may sound like a pretty horrible person in saying this, but it is fact: There are some pretty ugly/strange-looking babies out there. That’s right, I said it. And before you get all, “Awww…but babies are sooooo cute and wonderful how can you possibly say that?” on me, just hear me out: I can guarantee that I have seen WAY more babies than you probably will ever see in your lifetime, and it’s just statistically inevitable that some people are gonna end up with a fucking weird looking baby. They might straighten out sometime later in their life, but as a baby they were just fucking weird looking. I’m not trying to mean, that’s just science man. It’s gonna fuckin’ happen, I just get to see it while you might not ever get the chance. That’s what my research is all about. Consider yourself informed.
35% CATS: I could technically call this section “33% cats and 2% other pets and also any other species of animal on the planet”, but there is just overwhelmingly something about cats that the people who own them are compelled to take thousands of pictures of them. So it gets to the point that numbers-wise, the cats just completely drown out the other animals people take a picture of. Every now and then, there will be a few pictures of a dog… you know, the kids playing in the yard with the dog….or the picture of the whole family including the dog…. but never an entire roll of pictures of the fucking dog. That just doesn’t happen. Cats, however, will have several rolls devoted entirely to them doing all the things cats do: sitting there not paying attention to you, clawing at something, eating and sitting on your lap….just long enough for you to snap a picture real quick. But people are real particular about their pictures of their cat- you gotta get the exposure just right, this is serious fucking business. And it’s usually someone pretty stereotypical, an old lady with enormous glasses who talks so slow you can’t understand what she’s saying just because halfway through a word you begin to lose interest because the conversation should have ended by then… pretty much what you’d expect I guess. However, it is not usually one of those truly “crazy cat ladies” who owns like fourteen cats, just an old woman who while crazy, only owns like one or two cats. She just also refers to them as “her children”.
12% PARTIES AND WEDDINGS: Pretty standard stuff here. As for parties it’s mostly people standing around, and usually there are several pictures where the index pinger of the person taking the picture is almost completely obstructing view. Weddings are pretty much the same deal, except they also tend to include alot of pictures inside of a church with absolutely zero lighting, and pictures of a huge group of people. But the interesting thing about wedding pictures is that what alot of people like to do is buy a shitload of cheap disposable cameras and leave them out on the tables so that everyone can randomly take pictures of the events which occurred at this wedding. Where it gets interesting is that more often than not, booze is in play, and you can really track the chronology of the night. It usually converges at the point of some dude taking a picture of his dick while he was taking a piss after his fourteenth Carona, before declining into crooked, shaky pictures of peoples’ legs/shoes, more frequent covering of the camera lens with index finger, and other such wonderful throwaways.
5% CAR ACCIDENTS AND INJURIES: Not a whole lot to say about that. Sometimes these pictures are kinda fucked up and traumatizing. I mean, sort of. It’s possible to see worse I’m sure.
2% DEAD PEOPLE: Yeah, I’m serious. Maybe I’m really weird, but I just don’t understand the idea behind taking a picture of your dead-ass relative, lying in the coffin, wearin’ a suit, the makeup, the whole nine yards…. That just seems creepy to me. I’m all for honoring and remembering your family members who have passed- but I figure that would mean more pictures of them when they were still alive, not when they’re gettin ready to be put in the damn ground. I’m sorry, I just can’t imagine what the fuck kind of person is snapping off pictures of the corpse at a wake. Seriously. Are you gonna put that fuckin’ picture in a photo album or something? That’s kind of fucked up. If I was getting to know you, and you decided to show me your family photo album, and you’re like, “Here’s us at the Grand Canyon…. and here’s Jimmy’s first day of school…… and here’s a picture of all of us at the big family reunion last year…. oh! and here’s a nice shot of my DEAD FUCKING GRANDFATHER. Look, there he is, right there in the casket….. and here’s twelve pictures of my cat, etc, etc….” that would make me real uncomfortable real quick.
And I saved what I’m sure is the most anticipated part for last, although you may be disappointed to discover that only…
6% NAKED PEOPLE, OR PICTURES OF A SEXUAL NATURE: Yeah, it’s really not a whole lot, and before you start to think- “Well, 6 percent isn’t that bad, I’ll take what I can get”- Know this: This category mainly consists of unreasonably overweight people, old people, and that drunken bathroom pic the dude at your wedding took of his cock. The main point is, one mostly finds themselves trying to get those pictures printed and off the computer screen as fast as possible, and some of them can be more traumatizing than the car accident/ injury pictures. Every now and then-another statistical inevitability- you might get one or two pictures of someone more pleasant to look at, however these pictures usually end at about a PG-13 level, because let’s face it, all the attractive people have gone digital by now and they keep that shit on their computer. Oh, and I almost forgot bachelorette parties, a.k.a. “A large black man wearing nothing but a cowboy hat and one sock grinding on some fat bitch”. Some bachelorette parties look like they were downright nutty- in alot of the ones I’ve seen it looks like the party literally consisted of: opening gifts (75% vibrators), eating cake (often penis-shaped), and then some almost naked man enters and proceeds to forcibly put you and your friends into strange and awkward sexual positions (while you and your friends are fully clothed) and then you and your friends take turns taking pictures of you all getting pretend-raped through your clothes by a man with absolutely no hair on his body, and dollar bills hanging out of the crack of his ass. I will never understand women.
And there you have it, the results of my extremely scientific research. I hope you feel smarter now.
