Never underestimate the power of body language.
In this instance, I struggled to line up a better shot. Simple reason: I’m not a PhotoShop kid. When I get the shot I want, post-processing begins and ends with a watermark and compression for posting, the latter transforming a porky megabytes pic into a speedy-loading xxx kilobytes.
On the other hand, if the snap prompts a “yech!,” I delete it outright. My patience simply does not extend to the photo editing process.
This wise guy futzed with me for a good 45 minutes. I’d kneel to take a from-an-ant’s-view snap; he’d fly off. I pulled one of my notorious belly flops; fool sounded like he was giggling at my efforts.
You can tell I’m in desperation mode by the very act of that belly flopping. Dirt, I can handle. But the 🦎🦗creepy crawlers🕷🐜 hanging out in the earth’s floor? Triggers my inner Carl Lewis! 🏃🏾♀️🏃🏾♀️
Since I proved too dense to hone in on his ultimate message, AfroPuffBoy tried another tactic, this one revolving around a more blatant “kiss my …” concept.
Me: “Really? You wanna go there?”
Catbird: Changes to a slightly different angle, lifts his tail, showing even more of his—uh—orange area.
Me: “Oh.” 🚶🏽♀️
Photo shoot terminated. (Walking away while muttering in my best 2 year old voice: I ain’t wanna take yoe pic no dang way, chump!)
→ Catbird: 1
→ Pam, the would-be photographer: 😶