"Hey, you! Where did you get that saxophone?" "...Sears." "Get him!"

The staff at Abbie Update chose tonight as the night to take Abbie’s one-year-old pictures. That means we made a trip tonight to the portrait studio in Sears, where, thanks to their recent merger, they combine a mall’s prices with K-Mart’s panache. Since Abbie’s birth, we’ve gone to Sears every three months for her formal pictures. We purchased their Smile Saver plan, which means we pay no sitting fee for our photo sessions. How does Sears make any money with this incredible deal? They sell add-ons! They can make a picture black and white! They can give it a sepia hue, or a blue hue, or a pink hue! They can give it a border! They can do all sorts of junk that I can do at home with Photoshop! And they only charge a few extra dollars to do it! Per photo! Plus tax!

Our local Sears upgraded to an all-digital photography system, an improvement over the magic elf based system they used on our last visit. The main advantage of the new system is it offers a whole bunch of new borders and mattes that we can dump on top of our beautiful pictures, for an extra charge of course. Another advantage of their new system is it prints high-quality proof sheets, which are basically collages of six different photos that Sears can print for us to take home that day. The last time we bought the proof sheet, they used very old magic elves with poor eyesight and blunt coloring instruments to create it, making the final product more of an artistic interpretation of the various poses than a realistic reproduction. The proof sheet we bought tonight, though, looked clear enough to give our friends and family a good idea of what the final product will look like without having to squint. Yet another advantage of their new digital system is that, since everything is digital and can quickly and easily be transferred electronically, we no longer have to wait three weeks to see our final pictures. Ha! Just kidding! That’s only an advantage that you would think an all-digital system would have. We still have to wait three weeks to see our final pictures. That way they can easily convince us to add to our order while we anxiously wait. If we’re really desperate, though, they can now print the sheets in the store for us to take home that day. And they only charge a few extra dollars to do it! Per sheet! Plus tax!