(I wrote this way back in March but never got around to putting it on the web. Here it is now, and it is still relevant.)

Well, I finally got my hair cut, and now I look a lot better on the scale, lost about two pounds. I didn't keep it so long because I liked it, far from it. The only reason i kept it was because my mom was theatening me with senior pictures. The thought of such torture made me sick to the very pit of my shallow being.

One day I was asked why I grew it out so long and my response was "Chicks did it." Well, I'm not quite that ignorant, but it was the most sarcastic response I could come up with at the time. Anyway, I decided to do deep thinking on the subject, as I love to delve deeply into worthless topics, and I was running low on things to write about on my site.

Senior pictures are one of those businesses that have iron-fisted control of their arena. My mother is completely convinced about the necessity of having senior pictures. My dad refuses to take a stand on the issue, he always has been pretty smart in knowing when confrontation is not in his best interest. However, I am deathly against getting dressed up for such silliness. Going in front of a camera, dressed up in clothes that i would never wear had I a say, and smiling like I am enjoying myself, is simply not me. You'd think my mother, who knows for a fact that our entire existence upon this earth is being taped and monitored by the U. N., would be able to find another way to remember what I looked like when I was a senior. Sheesh, since she's never going to see me again, why would she..., oh, I guess I can see her motive, but anyway, there are much better ways, (read: cheaper, less painful ways) to remember I was once her son.

Is there really a purpose to them anyway? You order hundreds of the things at three digit prices, with the expectation of handing them out and trading them with other people. In my case, I can hand them out to the five or so people that can stand my company, another three or four who tolerate my existence, and then another 10 who know I exist. What to do with last 80 or so? There isn't enough to use as wallpaper. My mom would be p. o.'d if I used them as scrap paper; same with using them as fire starters, though the green flames are cool. I could write numbers on them, and draw pictures so that they can be used as a deck of cards. I'm really at a loss of what to do with the last 30. My mom will probably try to send them out with the Christmas cards, but most will end up sent back I'm sure. Anyway, as far as I can see, they are a waste of money and my afternoon, and when I grow up, (as if that will happen) they will only be a horrible reminder of what I was back when I was a senior.

As of late though, I have been winning the fight, beating back Big Senior Pictures and my mother who has been brainwashed by their message. By avoiding getting my hair cut, combined with breaking my arm, I have prevented her from getting me to the studios. With any luck, her chronic procrastination will put them off until I am far out of her reach. Anyway, is their any industry outside of beer and tobacco area that has such control over their potential clientle? "Every gets them" is my mom reply when I ask why, and then when I ask if every senior jumps off a brige, should I join them. Of course, her reply is that that is different. When I used that excuse when she posed the brige question to me years ago, she found it rather unacceptable. Stupid double standards.

She simply doesn't understand that she has been brainwashed into believing their mantra of the pictures being a necessity. However, I will alert her to the fact at every chance I get>