We Are Timbers

It took me a long time to decide whether I wanted to write about this or not. I generally don’t mind writing about humiliating things but there are occasionally events that I can’t bear to revisit in public.

My soccer team has this ad campaign where they use fans.

They did a promotion where you could go to their store and they were going to have a professional photographer and you could get your picture taken like the ads. I can’t tell you how excited I was about this.

I wore my team jersey to work and I trotted down there right when the store opened. You could hold either an axe or a chainsaw. I picked axe.

Then I waited for a week, telling everyone that I got my Timbers photo taken and I couldn’t wait to put it on Facebook and my website.

This photo is copyright all rights reserved Portland Timbers which I think technically means I’m not supposed to use it except they said they wanted to see these photos everywhere like on FB or whatever.

Isn’t it adorable? Obviously, not mine.

And then I saw the photo.

I am not one of those people who says, “OMG! What a terrible photo of me” and I generally find unflattering photos of me pretty funny. But this photo is so terrible it put me in an existential funk for almost a week. I look like a cross-dressing caveman who has been going too heavy on whatever the opposite of botox is and just woke up on a park bench after a three day bender.

Now I’m sure you’re dying to say, “Oh come on, it can’t be that bad.”

My dear husband, who thinks I am the most beautiful woman alive, even 5 seconds after I get up in the morning said, “Well, if you look at those photos, a lot of those people look pretty bad.”

And my colleague, who I regularly mock for taking horrible photos, he shook his head and said, “I’d love to kick you when you’re down, but I just can’t.”

I’ve gone back and looked at it a number of times, thinking that I’d get over it or that I’d misjudged and was just disappointed it didn’t come out better. Nope.

I thought about contacting them and asking them to burn it but ultimately decided that I would just pretend it never happened.

Meanwhile, they are using those photos for all kinds of ad campaigns. They’re have a checkerboard with 24 photos in the newspaper or whatever and every time I see one I am overcome with dread.

It seems like they’re picking the good ones so maybe I’ll escape further humiliation.

But now I can’t stand the sight of my jersey. I had to put it in the back of the closet.