Picture Perfect

"I don't like the way you look," my sweetie said to me one day.

I was instantly on guard. This sounded suspiciously like the Jackie Mason routine in which a Jewish wife tells her husband, "I don't like the way you look. You need a vacation," and then makes him take her to an expensive resort.

"You don't like how I look? Maybe I'll get an estimate on a face-lift," I replied sourly.

"It's a little late for that," she laughed. "But that's not what I meant. What I don't like is the way you look in your Card Player photo."

"I know, my hair's a little messy in that picture. Other than that, what's wrong with it?"

"Well, for one thing, take a look at what you're wearing. That jacket and tie you have on date from the '50s. It looks like your bar mitzvah picture. And why are you wearing a jacket and tie in the first place? You normally dress like a bum. You haven't put on a suit or sport coat twice since I've known you. Why can't you look more casual, like the other writers? And you should wear some kind of hat to cover that bowling ball you call a head."

"OK," I answered peevishly. "I'll get Michael Wiesenberg to loan me one of those cockamamie caps he likes to wear. Or, how about one of those 12-gallon hats that Oklahoma Johnny staples to the side of his head? More casual? How about I stick a 4-foot cigar in my mouth to look more like Cappelletti? Or maybe … "

"Will you shut up?" she cut me off. "You look like a dork in that picture. It's not just what you're wearing. You're also staring directly and idiotically into the camera like you're being photographed for a driver's license photo, or a police mug shot."

"Apart from that," I said sarcastically, "might there be anything else in my photograph that displeases you?"

"Yeah, your beard. Why don't you shave it off? It makes you look older than Grandma Moses, and it makes me look older when you're with me in public."

"How about I sit on a pony like 6-year-old kids do? That'll make me look younger. Or would you prefer I pose in diapers? Anyway, if I shaved my whiskers off, people might not recognize me."

"That's the whole point. If you went barefaced and put on a hat and sunglasses, people might not recognize you at the table. And if they didn't know what a pigeon they had, they might not try to run over you for a while."

"Keep talking," I said, taking notes. "After a while I might have enough material for a column."

"Why not? You know, if it wasn't for me, you'd have run out of ideas for stories and would have had to retire five years ago."

"If it wasn't for you, I'd have been able to retire five years ago."

After I picked myself up off the floor, the discussion continued. "Don't get smart and don't argue with me, you little worm," she said sweetly. "First off, I'm going to take you to see Pierre le Tutu, the French fashion designer, to get you some tips on dressing."

The next day we made an appointment and walked into le Tutu's atelier. "Can you make this slob look halfway decent?" she demanded. "He needs to take a poker photo."

"Sacre bleu!" le Tutu muttered, "anuzzer poker player. You would like perhaps to look like Brent Carter? You can find Members Only jackets like his at Goodwill. Or maybe you would like to play ze cowboy like Dirty Wally? Check ze children's department at Penney's. Perhaps I can interest you in Big Denny style gangsta pants?"

"Oh, nothing special," she said. "Just anything that will make him look normal. He needs to take a photo for his column in a magazine."

"Ah, and which magazine would zat be?"

"Card Player."

Le Tutu strode to the back of the room, scooped up a handful of clothes from a closeout rack, and tossed them to me. "For Card Player zis is good enough. Give ze receptionist whatever it is you can afford and have ze good day," he said, turning his back on me.

When I got home, I inspected the clothes. The styling was dated, the colors were awful, the workmanship was shoddy, and the garments were manufactured in Bangladesh prison camps. Still, they were better than anything I had in my closet. At least they weren't from poker tournaments, like most of my shirts and jackets. I pondered my choices. I admired a Nehru jacket, but decided it was a bit too formal. I finally settled on a rather stylish, off-pink, diagonally zippered flowered shirt. Tom McEvoy would have loved it.

"What do you think?" I asked my sweetie.

She winced. "Well, I guess it's appropriate enough for a humor column."

"I'm ready, then?"

"Not quite. I hate those bags under your eyes. They're more like suitcases. Anyway, you need a vacation. The next thing I knew, she had booked us a flight to Costa Rica and set me up with one of those cosmetic surgeons they seem to have on every block there.

Back home again after going severely in debt to pay for the trip and the surgery, I was finally ready. I wanted to get my picture taken for 50 cents in one of those photo booths, but that wasn't good enough for my sweetie. She made me go to one of those Beverly Hills portrait photographers who charge more to snap your picture than Leonardo da Vinci would to paint it. It took two days of glamour shots through layers of gauze before the photographer was satisfied.

When the prints arrived, I didn't recognize myself, but my sweetie said anything was better than how I looked before. Then, on top of everything else, I had to spend a small fortune at the post office because plain mail wasn't good enough for my sweetie; she made me send it to Card Player by overnight, registered, certified, insured mail.

And that's the story of how I finally got a sensational new picture of me for my column. Unfortunately, it never got used. Card Player refused to spend $10 to make a new negative.