I'LL SHOW YOU MINE IF YOU SHOW ME YOURS

I don't know about your life but mine seems to run in themes. Odd random themes that just pop up with no rhyme or reason. Things like us all coming into work and realize that we have all worn some shade of green like we were in junior high and had planned this all out on our princess phones the night before. Or you will not have anyone on your case load pregnant and then, in a pre-stork explosion, you will end up with 4 girls expecting and 8 guys whose *fiances* are pregnant. Or you will schedule 15 people to see and only 3 will show up.

But today's theme has never happened to me in all of my 11 years of probation.

Today was show and tell. Show and tell with photos.

One of my older women comes in and we have a nice office visit but you can tell she is just not ready to leave. She picks up her purse and takes out an envelope filled with about 30 pics in it. They are pics of her holding the fish that she caught last weekend, her ex husband who is not so ex anymore and of her dogs. The problem is that these pics are all taken with a 1970's point and shoot Polaroid. I did not know you could even get the film for it anymore! You know the kind....you point the camera and the picture comes out of the bottom with that mechanical noise and they you flop it around so that the color develops? That's the one! All the photos look like they were taken in the 70's but she assures me that they were all taken last week. To make matters worse, there was not a complete image of anyone or anything in the photos. Everything is just slightly off kilter. I see half of the ex's face, my grinning girl holding half of a fish and several fuzzy dogs butts. I flip through the pics and make the appropriate "ooohhsss" and "aaahhhss" and "that is so cutes". She finishes up the slide show and puts her photos away with great care. Then she takes out her new drivers license for me to see. She is very upset because they made her take her glasses off and she thinks she does not look like herself. I agree with her. She looks more like the ex that she has shown me in previous pictures. Then, from behind her current drivers license, she pulls out a license from the past...grins and then turns it over to show me.

It is my girl with her head full of fluffy pink hair rollers all over her head IN HER DRIVERS LICENSE!! She said that she carried it for years and people always loved seeing it.

Me? My mind is racing a million miles an hour wondering how I can slip it into my copy machine to prove this to you so that you would not think I was making it up. I know that not one of you is going to believe that I actually held IN MY HANDS a drivers license where the woman is totally smiling with a head full of rollers! Finally I give up and give her the license back. She puts everything back in her purse and, satisfied, gets up and leaves.

My next guy comes in, and *sniff sniff* I notice that for this office visit he has added cologne. Well now! That is something that has never happened in our previous office visits. My thoughts are he is working on his hygiene. He is a long timer and really has nothing left to do but report so our office visits do not take much time. We chat, discuss how he is doing and then I give him his next appointment. He gets up to leave and then sits back down and says

"There is something that I would like to show you."

Picture if you will my mind quickly turning blank and my eyes blinking at a high rate of speed at the thought of a aftershaved sex offender offering to show me anything.

Before I can say *Put that thing away* he takes out two photos. They are from his work. He works in a field where they load and unload freight cars off of truck and rail road cars. He is the mechanic for the massive machines that do that work. He tells me that he took those pictures with his camera just for me so that I could what it is that he does.

There are a lot of lonely people out there.

Pray that none of the rest of my people that I see today have had a vasectomy or hemorrhoids.



Comments

  1. Anonymous9:47 AM

    OMG ... I will be praying, as soon as I stop giggling at the thought of that drivers license!!! You poor thing. That was quite a shock.

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  2. Anonymous9:57 AM

    Wow! Lonely people.
    I would have loved to see the curler license pic!!

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  3. *snickers*

    I love the hair rollers in the license! Too cute.

    Surgery scars.......well I have a picture of a metal pin sticking out of my right pinkie toe after surgery for a Taylors bunion! Wanna see? Wanna see?

    You have the best job!

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  4. I remember when those Polaroid cameras were just the coolest thing!

    You sure do meet some interesting people. And there is something sweet about that guy being proud of what he does and wanting you to see it.

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  5. You and Rach have GOT to write a book.

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  6. The rollers in the hair is a hoot.

    I can take a picture of my scar from getting my gallbladder removed over 25 years ago if you like... like LBJ.

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  7. Uh....yeah.... the curler lady?

    She's my cousin. Fer reals.


    I'm so proud.

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  8. Rachel, you ARE kidding, aren't you?

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  9. LMAO

    What an amazing ministry you have, Miss!

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  10. We still have that kind of camera at work...and we use it. That is the only kind that corporate will let us use to takes pics of my clients...I kid you not.

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  11. I'm glad you are there to listen and look at photos.

    At least you don't see all the pics people bring into lawyer's offices...or do you???? Owie!

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  12. Yikes! That's sumptin'. I think I'm speechless...too much weirdness to process.

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  13. I love the kitty cat!!! I got him too. Er, uh, I got his brother. Don't want to be called a cat napper.

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  14. Mindy:

    You lead the most interesting life.

    I totally believe the story of the pink roller lady. If she is not really related to Rachel, she might be related to me!

    Some people use those Polaroid cameras to make altered photos. I've been wanting to try it but don't have the camera (though we do have an old one at office they never use. I keep waiting for them to toss is when they are in a cleaning frenzy, but no such luck yet).

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  15. LOVE IT! Rollers! And SpookyRach's cousin to boot! That rocks.

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  16. BWAAAAA!!!!

    What a fun job you have!!!

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  17. Anonymous4:11 AM

    grin ... love the way you tell it too :)

    and what RM said.

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  18. Heck--make it an assignment! Give all your clients disposable cameras to document their lives between now and their next visit.

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  19. You tell the funniest stories. I've tagged you for a MeMe. The rules are on my blog. http://everydayrevelations.blogspot.com/

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  20. Anonymous7:14 PM

    You rock - you are so sweet to listen and oooh and aaah over the photos - you know there are people who would brush all of that aside without a second thought - obviously you have built up trust with these folks and they want to include you in their lives in a samll way.
    OTOH - I will say prayer about the other possibilities out there - could get to be a bad trend!!

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  21. Just be glad the client Rach is dealing with hasn't decided to take up photography

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  22. OK, I have to tell you... when we lived in the South, I was always amazed at the women who went everywhere in public with their hair in curlers and a kerchief over the top. As in - WHAT are you doing later than you are out in public NOW with your hair like that??? So I can totally TOTALLY see a driver's license photo with someone in curlers because they probably always looked like that! (Though it is too bad you couldn't scan it!)

    LOL

    d

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