Thursday, March 30, 2006

Scary!

Last week I visited a photo store in my neighbourhood. I wanted to have some pictures scanned, and I think I ended up getting totally scammed. At first, the guy was going to charge me W1,000 for each picture. I complained that seemed a bit pricey, but he countered that it would get me 2 copies of each photo, blah blah blah. I told him I didn't need copies, I just wanted them e-mailed to me, so he dropped the price to W800 per. Still seems rippy-offy to me, but whatever.

While he fiddled around with the pictures, I looked around the shop. Spooky place.
This scary grandpa-baby stood near the door and did a little swishy dance while it played "Hound Dog."
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It creeped me out, but made me laugh - so I kept agitating it so it would sing and dance. I think I made it go about 25 times.

Even more creepy was this very large portrait which hung on one of the walls.
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This should be considered child abuse, I'm thinking.
Poor kid has had his foot amputated and replaced with a bunch of grapes, and then is made to stand naked with his brother with a faux beach scene backdrop. It's bad enough to think that the parents probably proudly display this eerie picture in their own living room, but now it's hanging in some little scary photo-shop-of-horrors for anyone to see! And take pictures of. And post on their blog.

Little Grape-Foot and his brother also have that "Grandpa-Baby" thing happening. What's up with the widow's peaks?

When I was uploading this picture, my co-worker was standing over my shoulder and I said, "Hey, look at this."
"Awwwww, cute!"
"Really? I think it's scary!"
"Why? In Korea, it's normal!"

When I was a teenager I used to babysit for a family with four boys. They were a wild bunch, and once one of them even hang dropped off the second floor balcony and ran away one Saturday evening. I sent my brother out to retrieve him. The older boys were ten year old twins, and the other two were four and five. On their living room wall was four poster sized portraits of each of them standing naked in the bathtub. (All of the pictures were taken when each of the kids were about the same age, I'd say, maybe two years old.)

When the older brothers (who had by then developed some level of body self-consciousness) would misbehave I'd point to their respective portrait on the wall and then nod knowingly while pointing at their pants. I guess it's never too early to impart some anxiety disorder regarding penis size, because the kid I was making fun of would try not to cry while attempting to punch me in the face.

Oh, by the way, this family was Greek and had only recently immigrated to Canada. The father, a very handsome fish monger, could barely speak English. Perhaps in Greece these kind of nekkid child pics are normal too!

1 comment:

Maven said...

Love the visuals... and um? Uh? WEIRD!!!