Shoot first, and fix the bowtie later.

© Celine Sparks, 2025

There’s a reason I am not doing the ChatGPT roast. I’m just a little bit jealous that I can stay up all night trying to write something that good, and then a robot can upchuck it faster than a 6-month-old can shoot green peas across the room. I console myself by saying, “Yeah, but the last three photos I looked at and laughed at said, ‘this kid’s look confesses, I’m one juice-box away from . . .’” 

So there’s that.

The robot gets hung up on one phrase, much the same as we did in eleventh grade. Namely, back then . . . Not.

As in, “I want to sit through another hour of chemistry class.” (Pause.) “Not.” We were a riot.

There’s also background trauma associated with this kind of thing for me. I’ve been the sole proprietor (for tax purposes) for Celine Sparks Photography pretty much since the camera was invented. You got fifteen chances back then with a film roll you put into a medium format model that weighed just a little less than an armada. I’ve heard parents threaten kids to smile or their Disney vacation was going to be traded in for a series of orthodontic visits. Surprisingly, this usually does not yield the natural smile we were hoping for.

Not doing it!

ChatGPT? Letting a complete stranger robot bully my family who has already been through enough with the whole Look-this-way-and-get-the-booger-out-of-your- nose ordeal – Letting that robot roast my loved (but not liked right now) ones?

Not doing it. 

We often told our children, “Quit calling people who are complete strangers idiots. That’s only for people you know and love.” So I’m not letting a complete stranger verbally abuse our floral bargain dresses and oversized hair bows. That’s for the people we know and love.

So here. I’ll do it, thank you. I’m the one who had to sit through endless episodes of “This Old House” watching dryer repairs when I thought we were going to snuggle for a family movie. I’m the one who had to drive two and a half hours to bring a kid their DL they left in a snack canister. I’m the one who chased the runaway cat all over the veterinary office lawn and through the woods out back. I get to do it. I get to roast my own people that I remember how much I love just seconds before I was about to surrender to a straitjacket. So here goes (all in a spirit of love, of course):

1. Kudos to that dad (or is it granddad?) who fronts a smile which reveals that underneath he’s having a flashback to the Great Bike Wreck of 1978. The pain is only subsided with the hope this thing can be over before they sell out of potato wedges at the gas station. 

2. Whoever thought of putting mom in an apron should be on death row, and actually may be at this point in the photo session. Pretty sure she just said, “Smile for this one, or I’m going to turn one of these background natural greenery pieces into a switch.”

3. If that near-grown teenager behind Betty Crocker apron mom could trade in that high-collar sweater for the orange model, he’d be ready for a Consumer Cellular commercial. 

4. And the guy with the bangs job from the album cover “Lurch Sings Gospel” got his shirt straight outta the the Opie Taylor wardrobe closet. His morose expression tells us the Easter bunny put black jelly beans in his plastic egg.

5. The girl in red is okay with Opie’s hands around her. Their inseparable nature is just short of a Gomez and Morticia moment.

6. Can someone explain why the family has one chair between ‘em, and why big sister gets the bulk of it while resting her chin in deep thought?

7. The baby blue dress on the girl with the lesser share of the chair yells, “I was Shein before Shein was even a thing!”

All in all, this family is ready for a filming of The Bold and the Beautiful, except without one of those adjectives. You can fill in which one.

Not.