Weird Phenomenon: The No-Help Helper

Earlier this week I was at Meijer in the bean aisle. Beans are tricky. They've all got two names. For instance, what you may not know is that 'cannelini beans' are also called 'white kidney beans'. Kind of like in high school when you had to study mythology and it turned out that the Romans and Greeks all had the same gods, but they had different names and you had to memorize both of them, and you're like WHY THE HELL DON'T YOU GUYS JUST AGREE ON ONE NAME? Anyways.
Usually, in the face of bean confusion, I call my mom. My mom knows beans like the back of her hand. She's a registered beanologist. But that day I didn't have my phone on me. I was at the grocery store with Brady without a phone. Please do not tell Rob this. It will prompt all sorts of discussions about responsibility and blahblahblah.
This was my lucky day though, because just as I was coming to the realization that no beans said canellini, a woman appeared behind me. The woman really did look a little like the fairy godmother from Cinderella, so I'm sure you can see where my thinking was.
Fairy Godmother points at a big jar of beans and says to me "Those beans are GOOD! I made a soup with them and they were fantastic!"
I say "Do you know which beans are cannelini beans? I know they have another name..."
This is where the weird phenomenon comes in.
My fairy godmother then proceeds to pick up four different cans of beans and explain to me that they are NOT what I'm looking for. It goes like this:
"Well, these are pinto beans. And these are great northern beans. And these are black beans..." On and on and on. What is the thinking here? Is this like a process of elimination thing? Was she going to identify and take every can of beans off of the shelf until only one lonely can of label-less beans remained in the back, hiding behind all of the other beans?
"Ah hah!" she would then say, "YOU must be the cannelini beans!"

This is not a phenomenon unique to beans.

Rob and I have both noticed this. Have you ever made the stupid, stupid mistake of pulling over and asking someone watering their flowers if they happen to know where XYZ Street is? Here is the response you're bound to get:
Them: "Well... this is Front Street.." (pause..look around) "and that's State Street..." (pause... look at you.. water gushes out of the hose, making a lake on the lawn...)
You: "Okay..thanks..."

Unhelpful helpers of the world, I am speaking directly to you. STOP. Repeat after me "I. Don't. Know." Say it, now. Say it again. Liberating, isn't it? Use it. It is okay not to know. It is okay to stop wasting people's time in the name of friendliness. Because, you see, I'm not upset that you don't know. That's perfectly fine. I'm upset that, because I have asked you this question, I now have to sit and wait through the answer which, let's be honest, is really just "I don't know".
But I can see you that you are turning over a new leaf. You will do great things with these three new words. I will now take this gift that you have given me, this ten minutes that you would have used to name all of the objects around me like I'm in a F'ING RICHARD SCARRY BOOK, and I will give it to someone who can help me.

I thank you.
Go now.
You are free.

What I Learned in Photography Class Last Night: I Look Like Hell

I knew better than to take this class. I have taken a class with this man before. I'm sure he knows what he's talking about in regards to photography, but... something's not quite right about him. It's not just that he has a penchant for pictures with naked women and fruit. Let me put it this way: I would not be at all surprised to find out that he had appeared in an episode of To Catch A Predator.

And, since I'm not putting his name here, let's be honest. He's a really terrible teacher. I try not to be too hard on teachers,because I am one and I know how hard it can be. But call a spade a spade. The man is a terrible teacher. There is no pre-planning. Basically, people ask random questions and that constitutes the entire class. Booo. Bad class structure.

Here's a quick summary of what happened tonight:

1. I make the mistake of asking a question. Cause I'm an idiot. My question is this: "Could we go over using an external flash? I have the same flash you have, and I used it at a wedding, and I wasn't happy with the way it turned out. I'm sure I'm just using it wrong."
His response:
"Okay, well let's try it. Come stand here by the wall."
He then takes a picture of me with the flash on.
He then shows it to me and says "See. It looks good!"
A. It does not look good. My face looks washed out.
B. ....wow. Great. Thanks for showing me that! That explains exactly NOTHING.
Note: All of this will come back to haunt me later in the class. Wait for it.. wait for it..

2. About halfway through the class he tells us, "If you can see something, even the outline of something, you can still photograph it. It's never too dark to shoot, if your settings are right. I could turn all of the lights off in this room and still take a picture of you guys."
There are no windows in this room.
Is this like the photographer's version of machoism?
I don't know.
But he's got to prove it to us.
Here's how that works out:
"Okay, I'll turn out all the lights...
"... okay, that's too dark. Turn on a computer screen. I can light the whole room with just one computer screen!"
"...okay, that's too bright..."
Finally takes picture. Looks at it.
"Well.. I mean.. you never really know what you're going to get..."
My internal monologue, here on out known as "mim" : Actually...you do. There's a whole bunch of people who can move the dials and know exactly what they're going to get... they're called photographers. That's why I'm here. I was kind of hoping to be one.

2. As you may know, if the light is low and there's another light source, the light source appears blurred in the picture. Example: If you wave a cellphone around, like at a concert, and the light is low, it will look blurry.
In his picture (the magic low-light picture) the computer screen looks kind of vapory, if that makes sense.
This causes him to launch into a discussion of spirit photography.
This discussion includes the sage advice: "If you ever take a picture, and you see some kind of light in there.. that's not a ghost.. that's just a reflection."
Phew.

3. Here's where the picture comes back to haunt me. He hooks the camera up to the projector. The huge projector. You know where this is going. For a while we look at the spirit photography (NOT GHOSTS!!! REFELECTION!!!...or is it?)
Then of course, he puts the picture of me up.
mim: Stop. Stop now...
Him: Look, see how great that flash looks?
Mim: no...
He then zooms in.
Zoom, zoom, zoom!
Listen, I've never had great skin, but NO ONE looks good this big.
Mim: Stop. Stop. Too late...

My eye is now about three feet tall, on the screen.
And the skin under my eye looks..I think the word is 'reptilian'.
But he couldn't stop there.
Because this man has no filter.
Then he opens up photoshop and says "And if you need to correct some blemishes..."
Then he proceeds to take the time to remedy my acne in photoshop.

Because he's an ass.

Fine, dude. So my skin isn't flawless. But do they have a tool in Photoshop that will cover up the fact that you LOOK LIKE A PEDOPHILE???
I'm thinking no.
And so I win, even if only internally.

Really can't wait to see what I learn next week. Maybe he can take a picture of my hips and airbrush me in front of the whole class until I'm a size 6.