Jigsaw Pieces

5

When three of our local drugstores, two Walgreens and a Longs, failed for different reasons to produce acceptable passport photos, we decided to take matters in our own hands, and save a few bucks in the process. I took a picture of Caroline against our kitchen wall, cropped and scaled them in photoshop to 2x2 format, arranged two on a 4x6 sheet and went to Longs to print the thing for 20 cents instead of $7. Yay!

Only when we came back an hour later to pick up the order, it clocked in at $7.71. For a total of four prints. After I contested the sum, the clerk called in the photo assistant, who said, "I'll show you", opened the folder and triumphantly pulled out the passport photo print. "These are seven dollars" she said.

Incredulously, I asked whether Longs charges for prints depending on what's on them, which just made her repeat that those were passport prints. It took five surreal minutes of discussion with the manager to convince him to give us that print for 20 cents, and even then he left us without a word of apology or goodbye, to his sourly suspicious clerk to ring up our corrected bill.