Do I really have to say 'cheese'?

Let me describe my driver's license photo to you -- please, don't continue if you're eating.
It was a hot, sultry day in July. (I don't REALLY remember, but judging from my hair -- which looks like Michael Jackson's in 1971 -- it was a day with 99 percent humidity.)
I asked the "photographer" -- a lovely woman whose former job had been to snap shots of corpses at crime scenes -- if my glasses would produce glare.
"I'd like to look good in this picture," I said. "I'll be stuck with it for years."
"Tip your head down," she said authoritatively.
I tipped my head down.
"Further."
The skin beneath my chin crushed together, like the rolls on a walrus.
"Further."
It could tip down no more, so I moved on to other important photographic considerations. I adopted a dignified, somber expression and looked at the camera.
"Smile," she said.
I hesitated. Smiles for driver's license photos always look fake.
"Smile!" she ordered.
I smiled.
The result wasn't exactlywhat I had in mind
Awful. Terrible. Frightening. It makes me both cringe and laugh every time I have to produce my ID, which is more often than you may have noticed if you don't have a photo with a double chin, frizzy hair and a fake smile.
I want to say to each store clerk who examines my license, "Isn't that an awful photo?" but I'm afraid she may say, "It looks just like you."
Just recently, my husband; son, Josh; and daughter, Hannah, and I were digging through one of our two huge photo tubs. We encountered a professionally made black-and-white photo of me as a baby, with adorable pink, color-tinted cheeks.
"Hey, we need to frame that," my son said. "That's a really nice photo."
He was right. I had curly black hair mounding on my head, fat cheeks, and marvelous dimples.
"You had dimples?" Josh asked.
"Yes, I have dimples!" I replied. Gosh, don't they show any more?
Pictures from the pastshow a photogenic side
This "good photo" was typical. (I wonder if they'd let me put it on my driver's license ... ) I used to be 100 percent photogenic, which makes my current descent all the more painful. I was adorable as a kid. First, I had this incredible smile. I had tons of thick dark hair. My cheeks were full and rosy, even in black and white photos.
As I hit my teen years, I wore glasses, but there never seemed to be any glare (nor any double chins). Eventually, I got contact lenses and kept right on taking great pictures.
Then, a couple of funny things happened, just about the time I met the corpse photographer.
For one, my eyes became crazed. No, that should read CRAZED!!
As my age increased, my ability to use contact lenses decreased. Now, I wear glasses. If I take them off for a photo, I evidently have trouble focusing properly. The resultant look is Jack Nicholson in "The Shining."
For my first Vindicator photo, Hannah and I joked that my readership would decrease because people would think I was going to come right off the page and attack them. We mimed spreading back the newsprint and Diane Makar Murphy climbing out of the photo to GET them.
I don't really want tosmile for the camera
For another, it's apparent there's one MORE thing our parents didn't warn us about when we were young. Not only do men get bigger noses as they age, women lose fat in their lips. I had a toothy smile all along, but now, my top lip disappears when I smile fully. This is more gumline than anyone wants to see.
This would be OK if people did not insist you smile for photos.
"Say cheese!"
"I don't want to."
"Say cheese!"
Time has taken away the adorable, photogenic little girl and replaced her with a stiff, toothy-smiled, crazy-eyed woman with barometrically challenged hair.
But honestly, what were the odds I would find one photographer so skilled she could capture all these failings in one little driver's license photo?
murphy@vindy.com