Photographs

My spirits are lifted! It's the last week of work! And soon enough, I will be home, back in the sweet comfort of beautiful California.

I spent much of this afternoon printing reports for record keeping at work. While I was waiting for the reports to run, I decided to scan some pictures I had taken back in the day, before I had a digital camera (I know, life without a digital camera is nearly unfathomable!). Scanning the pictures reminded me of a funny story.

During my senior year of high school, my mom bought me my first sari and had a blouse stitched for me. It was a beautiful hot pink, black, and cream sari, with a pretty, cream colored blouse. I wore it to the portrait studio, where we had a variety of photographs taken and printed. Six months later, my mom decided to use the photographs as something to put into our family holiday cards, so she stuffed the envelopes and sent out a whole bunch. She sent some to relatives and friends in Bangalore, one of whom informed us that they never received the photograph or card. My mom chalked it up to being lost in the mail and we forgot about it. About two months later, we get a phone call from the family that didn't receive their holiday card. It turns out; the postal service mistakenly delivered it to their next door neighbor's house. Their nosy neighbor, curious as to why someone else on the block was getting mail from the U.S., decided to open the card and they found the photo. Deciding that the girl in the photo was pretty, they put it up on their mantel piece. Two months later, when our friends had gone over to this neighbor's house for dinner, they discovered the picture of me on the mantel. They asked their neighbors how they knew me, and the embarrassed neighbors had to admit that they did not know me, but that they got my picture from a holiday card that was not addressed to them. Needless to say, our family friends took the photograph back.