Me, Myself, and Elephants

Hello folks, let’s chat… Our story begins when those in charge of last weekend’s Heartfelt Experience in Monroe, LA asked me to submit some playful selfies for the speaker’s introductory video, along with a few fun pics taken by a friend. Being notoriously anti-selfie, the first part was challenging. Now, wait a minute. Don’t get all ruffled up on me. I’m not hating on the occasional selfie, but I do have qualms about our culture’s growing fixation with posting pics of our own faces online twenty-four seven. To combat that, I may or may not have given a speech in West Virginia last year called Selfies Make Your Behind Look Big. I was hoping it’d go viral and stop the madness.

It didn’t — because it’s part of a bigger problem. I’m gonna do this as politely. Are you ready? Last year plastic surgeons had more requests from women to enlarge their posteriors than they did to pad their top shelves. And if that isn’t Straight Running Crazy enough for you, women who can’t afford the posterior surgery are injecting chicken fat back there to make it bigger. Chicken fat. Back there.

This isn’t the first I’ve heard of that chicken fat thing, and my questions now are the same as they were then. Who in the world came up with that? Why? And how? Was she injecting her butterball and watching that big thigh swell up when she thought, “Hmmm…why not?” Personally, I can think of a hundred dozen reasons why not, as can every female in my circle of friends and family. We’ve dedicated our lives to reducing that area. But, I should get back to my selfie story.

Our instructions were to put on our Sadie smile and have fun. Sadie Robertson, that is. Have y’all seen Sadie? Yeah, that’s what I thought too, but I wanted to comply.

There I was, self-consciously attempting my selfie session when a sweet young girl exited the building I was using for my hasty photo shoot. Mortified, I pulled her into my madness so I could explain. And then I asked her to take some of those fun pictures for me. Although hamming with someone else behind the camera was easy-peasy, things went south. Literally. I honestly can’t remember who decided I should try that “jump in the air” shot but I’ve always considered myself athletic and I’ve always thought those pics are cute where the camera catches someone in mid-flight with their feet kicked out all cute to one side, so why not, right? Well, catching me in the air, that’s where our plan began to fall apart.

I tried executing a playful jump and smiling at the same time but the law of Gravity was working against me. I tried more than once. Only I kept coming down on my way up. It didn’t help that I found the whole thing terribly funny, which meant I now needed a pit stop. I think my photographer wanted to laugh, too, but she had clearly been raised to respect her elders.

We all know I’m hard-headed but apparently I also enjoy torturing myself. Days later I was trying the same shot with my darling man behind the camera until Phil finally said, “You need to get you something to jump off of and we’ll snap it on the way down. ” I gave him a pass for that. He meant well.

Ironically, several days after those infamous photo shoots I ran across a news piece that said elephants are the only mammals on earth that can’t jump. Do I need to explain how badly that hurt my feelings? I didn’t think so.

Hugs, Shellie