Dear Everyone, Please Stop Taking the Goofy Picture

No one looks good in them. Even the prettiest girl, who is careful not to get too loose with the facial features, who works pretty hard at coming up with something silly but still charming, looks bad.

Everyone has his or her own personal face to make when hearing the photographer say, “OK, now let’s take a goofy one!”

There are the tongue-out-of-the-side-of-the-mouth people:

The crossed-eyes people:
           
The Gene-Simmons-from-KISS-tongue people:

The person who unknowingly tries to look like Quasimodo by putting her mouth over to one side:

But no one looks good in the goofy picture. My family has taken our share of goofy pictures. The one at the top of this post is one. And then one time we decided to take a photo of everyone real, real serious, like in the old pictures of yore. Except in yore, people had a lot more to be serious about. What with all the diseases they didn’t have cures for yet, surgery without anesthesia, immigrating without a dime in your pocket, not to mention those horrid corsets the women had to wear, taking the “serious picture” was a heck of a lot easier.

For ours, we couldn’t get everyone to stop smiling, which I suppose is a reflection on how wonderful and pain-free our lives are.

I was the first to master it.

And then everyone else soon followed suit, except for my husband, who just is too cheerful for his own good.

So we try not to take the goofy picture anymore at all.

Some of these people should do the same, for obvious reasons. Just for fun, try to find the person who is the best at the goofy face. I’ve marked my favorites. 

Is that a man with boobs? No wonder he looks so startled.

"I see my opportunity to use my evil grin. I’ve been practicing.”

Deer-in-the-headlights looks good on you.
           
This isn’t going to go in my wedding album, is it?

“Here’s my toothless homeless guy.”

Jazz hands is as goofy as I get.

Uncle Vince was having a stroke, but no one noticed because they thought it was just his goofy picture face.


Kissing, whistling, goofy face, whatever.

Crossed eyes and tongue-out-the-side-of-the-mouth. Well played, m’lady.


I can’t choose between these two. Some groups are lucky enough to have two super-goofy-face-makers.


“Who farted during the goofy picture?”


And then there’s the person who refuses to make the goofy face, which makes everyone else look even more ridiculous. Hint: When the photographer says, “Make a goofy face,” you’re supposed to - oh, I don’t know - make a goofy face. If you value your friendships at all.