Recently my best good friend Shannon and I frolicked to our favorite local mall establishment.She lives roughly 2 hours away so whenever we see each other, we tend to go to the local mall, be it in Nashville or in Huntsville. Granted, Nashville's malls are waaay better but I digress...
Shannon and I have a tendency to get our pictures taken in those photo/sticker booths. We have many many memories of doing this along with the evidence that your tongue does not grow past age 14. The price has also increased along with the payment options. I remember trying to find two straight dollar bills that weren't rejected by the dollar-bill-eater. Other than that, we never had any problems...until...
We come upon "Foto-Cube" (FC). FC is a new concept wherein four pictures are taken and laid out so you may fold ends to make a cube. Whoever at FC thought four sides made a cube is a complete idiot. Anyway, Shannon and I got the idea to get ours done. We sit down inside of the booth. Five bucks!! What? And you may use your credit card for payment. Ok, we are grown ass women. I can spare five bucks.
Payment made. Now it's time to choose your border. Border? What happened to just those blue or red curtains? We picked our "Hotties" border, complete with flames. Next is taking the pictures. There's the usual tongue one,goofy face, etc. While you are making these faces, the video of you is playing outside for the mall walkers to see. We don't fret.
While the FC is being developed (3 minutes), trivia questions are asked on the screen. Whoever thought of these questions must have been the bright one who said four sides made a cube. These questions were about movies no one probably saw twenty years ago. Who exactly is the target audience for FC?
Ah, three minutes is up as I see our FC spit out at the bottom printer hole(there are three).I reached down to grab it and enjoy our FC with my best good friend. But no. Before I could touch it, it was sucked up back into the FC. DAMN YOU FC! DAMN YOU!
I then get on my knees to see where our precious FC ran off to. It's stuck in the printer, inches away from my fingers. DAMN YOU FC FINGER GUARDS! Shannon and I are helpless...until..
Shannon calls the 1-800 number listed on the FC. We didn't think there would be an on-call technician or anything. Shannon finally got a customer service rep. (I'm still on my knees cussing the FC). The Rep advised Shannon to "beat above the printer hole like you would do a door." What kind of door? Wooden, glass, steel???? There's so much difference! I beat it and beat it some more. Shannon, who btw is three mos. pregnant, gets on her knees now (we joked that this is what got her pregnant in the first place) and beats with me. Nadda. Our memory is trapped. The Rep then tells Shannon she will send her a refund.Thanks Rep Lady but that doesn't even come close to the price of our memory.
We are not defeated though we were sad. Then we had the bright idea of waiting until another person used the FC and see if the printer they printed to was ours...possibly getting ours loose. So yes, we stalked the FC. After a few minutes, a couple of teenagers went in.They paid and took their pictures. YES! We were excited about getting our memory out of the damned FC. After three minutes, their FC spits out...of the top printer. They enjoy their memory while Shannon and I are pissed. We go back to beat on it some more, taking out our frustrations. Why oh why Foto-Cube would you give them happy memories???
After a while, we decide to continue our shopping and come back. Maybe our luck would change. I keep looking back as I walk away...away from our memory. We returned shortly to find the same two teenagers on the floor in front of the FC waiting on another one. They were playing with the properly folded cube, tossing it in the air, as if to taunt us with their Foto-Cube. Sure enough, their second cube popped out and they folded it and showboated their luck. Damn bitches.
Shannon and I were distressed. We didn't know what to do. We decided to kick it some more, getting our frustrations out. We raged. Against the machine. Back on our knees we tried to reach it to no avail.
F it. We decide to get another made. Maybe it will not eat this one. We get in and I pay with a credit card. "Not able to transmit." WTF? Shannon tries hers..same thing. The FC gods are laughing at us. Maybe it's fate. F fate. I had another five dollar bill. Haha to you FC gods.
It takes, we take pictures. One is of us shooting the bird to the FC...we hate the FC now. Three minutes later....BAM, the FC spits out our first pictures!! Shannon grabs them quickly. After that our new FC comes out. We have won. We have beaten the machine. I laugh at you FC gods. We never gave up.
So the moral of the story is...beat on it, stalk it, leave it, come back to it, beat it again, and eventually you'll get what you want.
Good times.
