Glamour Sh*ts
Okay, I’ve been stewing on this post for a while now.
You know, I have worked with the public. I’ve done it a lot. I know that it’s often a thankless job, with lots of pain, suffering, and the occasional stingy benefit. But NEVER have I had an experience like the one I had with that haven of the early 90′s, Glamour Shits, I mean Shots.
I warn you, this is is going to be LONG and EXTRA-RANTY. But it should be worth it. I hope.
I like Groupons. I do. I use them a lot to discover new restaurants, new places to visit, new business to frequent. I’ve gotten good meals, good massages, even good acupuncture through Groupon.
But the day that my sister *Bambi (her codename. For reals.) and I each decided to purchase the Groupon for Boudoir Glamour Shots was a dark day indeed.
It took us a while to actually go and visit said establishment. But one Saturday in January, we finally got the time to go and get them done for our respective significant others. Just in time for Valentine’s day, or so we thought.
I was dashing out the door to my HCRW chapter meeting when I called for the appointment. Good thing I did, too, because we had to bring our own outfits. Surprise number one. I realize that my information is coming from the era of Lisa Frank and slap bracelets, but I’d always thought that Glamour Shots provided outfits for their pictures. Shrugged, gathered up a bunch of lingerie and one of hub’s Yankees jerseys, and set off.
Bambi and I had an appointment at 5:00pm. I arrived at 4:45, and Bambi was right behind me about ten minutes later. From the MOMENT I stepped into the lobby of this overpriced overphotoshopped hell on earth, the customer service was SHITE.
I stood at the counter, smiling politely at the receptionist, who was way more concerned about the customer on the phone than the one standing in front of her. About five minutes later, she covered the mouthpiece.
Not bad hair and makeup. Pic taken with my phone.
“Can I help you?”
“Yes, my sister and I have appointments at 5?”
“Okay, have a seat.”
And she went back to her conversation.
At 5:25, we got tired of sitting in the waiting area. I went back to Cheerful at the counter.
“Is there anything else we need to do to check in?”
“Oh, I’ll be right with you.”
Five minutes later we got our sign-in forms. I kept sniffing my armpits unobtrusively. Did I smell? Was there some reason that their twelve staff members were ignoring my sister and I?
I smelled fine to me.
After that, we got to the only pleasant part of the entire experience: the hair and makeup. This cute little guy came and fetched us from front-lobby oblivion, and plopped us down in the stylist chairs with the promise that he’d fix me up, and someone else would do Bambi. Weeeeeell, it took more than an hour for my hair and makeup to be done. My poor sister sat there the whole time, waiting. No one came to help out cute little guy, so Bambi and I swapped chairs and waited another hour plus for him to do her hair and makeup.
He actually did a pretty nice job, if I do say so. He should quit that hellhole.
But then he disappeared. The way they all disappeared.
Okay, let me pause at this point to say:
Right before the last set of pictures. I’m EXHAUSTED.
It had been a busy day. I hadn’t eaten much more than a bagel. I know that wasn’t smart, but Bambi and I were planning on a nice dinner. This place is in a pretty big mall. Lots of nice restaurants. We figured we’d be done by 7:30, 8:00, and then go have a nice meal together.
It is now 8:30, and we’ve not had the first picture snapped. I had a headache, and I was becoming a bit concerned.
But Bambi and I are both EXCEPTIONALLY polite people, so we just rolled with it. But when the mom and daughter that had arrived at about 7:00 got a dressing room before my sister and I, I began to become PRETTY PISSED.
But whatever. We slapped on some outfits, and began snapping pictures. The photographer lady was nice enough, when she wasn’t ignoring us. We’d get dressed, sit down and wait for the other customers to vacate the one studio, and get our pictures done. Let me just say there was NOTHING GLAMOROUS ABOUT THIS ENTIRE SITUATION. The drops were old and ratty, the floors were scratched, and the ghetto-fabulous flash system was blinding Bambi because it would go off for no apparent reason in between shots.
We finished the pictures at 10:00 pm. FIVE FUCKING HOURS. So we get to the counter, both of us hungry, exhausted, and quite frankly fucking pissed, when Cheery from before says
“Well ladies, it’s going to take another 45 minutes or an hour before we can get your pictures uploaded and you can view them.”
I put my foot down.
“You guys want to go home, we want to go home, the photographer said we could come back and view them later.”
Cheery wasn’t happy about it (can you tell her name is sarcastic???) but she said sure.
I’m going to cut quite a bit of the return trip. But I assure you, it was JUST AS PLEASANT AS THE INITIAL. I went from arguing with the chippy that answered the phone and said that we COULDN’T go view our photos that day, to arriving and getting ignored AGAIN, to viewing some of the most crappy pictures I have seen this side of a Wal-Mart portrait studio. Seriously. My cell phone pictures from 2004 were of better quality.
And the prices? HOLY SHIT. They wanted $800.00 US American Dollars for 5 PICTURES.
We both said no, fuck you very much. We’d just take what our Groupons entitled us to.
I just got my “digital image, suitable for internet use.”
Want to see it?
This is full size. I shit you not.
It’s a fucking postage stamp.
All told, this was SEVEN HOURS OF MY LIFE, and for what? A picture so small it wouldn’t cover one of my damn nipples.
I’m not the kind of person that’s picky. In general, I believe the best of people.
But Glamour Shots? Wow. Seriously. Just wow.
Please, if you don’t wipe your ass with thousand-dollar bills, and if you value your time outside shopping malls, DO NOT VISIT GLAMOUR SHITS. Unless you’re l0oking for ways to deepen your depression.
