by Nancy Linenkugel
Contributor
Much of the time, messages on Facebook are about recipe videos, friends' pets, or birthday notifications. I must not have a very robust friend community on Facebook, but whenever I think of checking those messages I usually find that I haven't missed too much.
However, a message did come through about the U.S. passport system and timing for renewal. I saw that and thought immediately, "I think my passport expires this year. I can't believe it's already been 10 years! I've already renewed that a couple of times, but this year has to be a renewal year."
Sure enough, when I checked my passport I found a 2016 date looming at me. Time to take action, so I did some Internet research, printed the renewal form, and found out what I needed to do about getting a picture taken at a sanctioned location. So far so good.
The passport photo gods were with me because at the first place I went, there was a "we do passport photos" sign. So I chatted with a very friendly clerk nearby who said, "I have to cover the register in this department, but I'll call Bonnie since she handles passport photos very well." The clerk seemed chatty and didn't have other customers, so we talked about her children, their ages (4 and 9), what she's doing to celebrate the older one's birthday (a Ninja party), and how her mom didn't like what she wore to work today ("Girl, don't wear that bright pink sweatshirt — it will clash with your red store smock!").
We had a good laugh over that (I had to agree with mom — the clashing colors were, well, something else), and then along came Bonnie. She had the camera in hand, told me to stand in front of a white wall, and she backed up to take the picture. I was still smiling from the conversation with the clerk when Bonnie said, "Ma'am, this isn't a cheese picture." Oh, right. I got it. Look serious. Don't smile.
Bonnie said, "Good. That's better." And after snapping only one shot, Bonnie walked over to show me and said, "Perfect don't you think? This one is great. Just call me One-Take Bonnie. It'll be ready in a few minutes." Bonnie disappeared and I saw the cashier again. She was smiling. "So glad it worked out quickly," she said. "And you didn't even borrow my outfit, either!" And we both screamed with laughter all over again.
[Nancy Linenkugel is a Sylvania Franciscan sister and chair of the department of Health Services Administration at Xavier University, Cincinnati Ohio.]