Dear Lifetouch School Portraits,
Gosh, fellas. Who woulda thought, only a few short years ago
as I wrote you my first letter, that we’d need to get all the way up to letter
number thirteen? But here we are.
I have felt, for a number of years now, that you might not
be reading any of these letters that I so graciously spend my time and energy
writing you. That was mostly due to the utter lack of response I have received from
you. I see now how wrong I was.
Foolishly, I assumed you would respond to my helpful
business advice with a civilized letter, a phone call, or maybe a nice note on
your website. But it seems you are the petty, passive-aggressive type. You have
chosen to take my sincere and constructive criticisms with a malice that was
never present on my end. And you have chosen to take the low road; responding
not to me, but instead, viciously attacking my children’s self-esteem.
Well, not all of them, actually. For some reason – probably rooted
deep down in your brutal, calculating business core – you have chosen to retaliate
on the weakest member of our herd, the youngest – Son Number Three.
Have you no shame? Have you no decency? Or are you going to
claim innocence in this matter and try to convince me that you don’t have anyone
in the building who can spell common English names?
No, I’m not talking about “Schmatjen.” That’s not common, or
English. I mean, I think we can all agree that Schmatjen is a ridiculous last
name. I expect it to be misspelled. I can’t even spell it correctly myself half
the time.
But given the last name, we purposely gave all three boys
traditional, easy-to-spell first names. Not like my parents, who doubled down
on the crazy with Marc instead of Mark. We decided to give our children the
gift of only needing to explain the spelling of their last name.
And yet, here in my hand is the class picture you produced.
And there’s my youngest son, smiling sweetly in his cowboy hat and red bandana.
(You may recall from Letters Eleven and Twelve your culpability in that make-up
picture day costume extravaganza, which, by the way, may have either ruined our
Christmas tradition of framed school portraits for the grandparents, or made it
infinitely more awesome, depending on if you ask my wife or me. Guess who won
that argument? Thanks again for that, jackasses.)
Anyway, there’s his smiling face… and there’s his “name”
under his photo. Yep, there’s our son, Josepm Schmatjen.
Josepm? Seriously?
Congratulations. You got “Schmatjen” right, but couldn’t seem
to pull off the easy first name. If this isn’t a backhanded attempt at retribution,
then please tell me what’s going on over there.
Did you guys think my son was a nocturnal Hispanic child
with a cool nickname?
Who’s coming over
tonight?
Jose PM. We’re going out
for another late night on the town.
Oh, I thought Joseam
was coming over.
Nope, that kid’s
always in bed by seven.
Or did you outsource the “Kids’ Names Below the Pictures”
department to India, like you probably did with your call center? The reason I
ask is his classmate Abhaijeet’s name is spelled correctly. Do you have some underpaid
guy in a tiny office in Mumbai still trying to grasp all these crazy American
names? “Timothy” is still a mystery, but to him, “Chhailbehari” looks like “John.”
I really don’t know what you have going on over there, but
since you never reply, I’m forced to speculate. Given the deterioration in our
relationship, I can’t help but think this might have been personal. I sure hope
it wasn’t.
Hey, I just had a thought. Maybe I’ll send Son Number Three
back for retakes dressed like a lifeguard with white zinc oxide on his nose. With
a slight tweak of his already misspelled name I could use your free picture
services to launch his career as Joe SPF, sunscreen model.
Let’s talk.
-Smidge
Copyright © 2018 Marc Schmatjen
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