The oversharing of vacation photos

The three words I hate to hear from Mrs. Whitman the most are, "Take a video."

You want a video? You take a video. I fucking hate taking video.

 

I was recently disembarking a flight with my ladyfriend, using one of those old-school steps down to the tarmac deals. A large woman and her friend stopped halfway down the steps, blocking the rest of us, in order to take arrival selfies. Not just one selfie. She's moving her phone around to take multiple shots. It had been a long flight and I don't patience for this shit at the best of times. I finally yelled "Get moving you fat fucking idiot." My aforementioned ladyfriend, never having visited sj.com, had not seen this side of me. She looked at me and blinked more than once. I told her I was still working on some things.

It was not a proud moment, but it was a moment.

 

LOL.

 

Speaking of the pursuit of photo perfection: My kids were born right when Pinterest became a thing and, essentially, a black hole that sucked new mothers' self-esteems across the singularity.

I can recall taking family photos, and Mrs. Whitman being damn near tears because the two hellions wouldn't look at the camera at the same time, let alone pose like all the Pinterest Stepford children.

 

Again, I hope we're talking about kid activities here.

 

Is it OK if I post this story in my Tumblr queue?

Then we can talk about it on my YouTube show.

 

That's fine, so long as you don't manually re-Tweet it. I want the hearts.

 

Back before cellphone cameras, I watched the father in an American family of four sit at a table at the Hofbräuhaus in Munich while using a bulky videocam to record the house band as they played polka music for the masses. We were there for 90 minutes, and the guy never stopped recording the band. It was embarrassing to watch. The guy would have little memory of the Hofbräuhaus experience except for what he watched through the lens.

 

I confess. On our daily walk to the forest with dogs 5 years ago, I took a 30 second video. Because two of our cats joined us, and it was pretty cool seeing two dogs walking the trail being followed by two cats. I did enjoy the other 44 minutes and 30 seconds without making a video, however.

 

Went right to the fat-shaming insult.

 

I did, although it was relevant because she was blocking the entire set of stairs.

 

Duly noted. Just trying to firm up my list of which insults are OK to use in public.