No this isn’t about the title of my new goth rock opera. This is about how we’ve reached a point where our first reaction is the worst case scenario.

Jenny and I have begun preparing to file for the I-129F Petition. It’s a long process and surely you’ll read more about it here as we get further toward going from Two Bees in a Blog to Two Bees in an Undersized American Apartment.

One step in filing for the I-129F is including pictures to prove your relationship is real. This was no problem for us as we have plenty including a few old Skype print screens.

You also have to include a passport type photo. Thankfully, I could get the pictures of Jenny and I printed at the same place I could get my passport picture taken. Like when I got my actual passport picture taken, it would be done by an angry CVS cashier.

Getting to CVS was an adventure in itself. The nearest one was a 2 mile walk away. I mean, I could have surely found a bus. However, some beautiful early March weather and to burn off some of those calories I can’t seem to keep out of my mouth, I decided to brave the walk.

My pictures were ready, I got the passport picture taken pretty quickly, and everything was swell. I began my return home when I decided after one block I should probably check to make sure I didn’t have any chocolate on my face (sorry diet!) in the passport picture. Although I looked pretty pissed off, the picture came out okay. I also thought it might be important to check the pictures of Jenny and me. I thumbed through quickly and saw a black person making a kissy face.

Jenny is not a black person and I’m not either. Unsure if maybe this was some kind of a promotion like to say “Hey, order more prints look at these samples” I take all of the pictures out and realized there were a lot of black people in the pictures I ordered. They weren’t ghosts hiding behind Jenny and me in our pictures. This was simply someone not doing their job the right way.

My first instinct was “to hell with the person whose pictures these are.” I was already tired from walking and was on my way home. It would have been easy enough to reprint the pictures. But then a weird feeling came over me. Yeah, it was easy enough to solve the problem if all I did was toss the incorrect prints out. I was also only a block away so turning back would have only cost me a few minutes of my time. There really wasn’t much of an excuse. More importantly, I thought about how this could turn into a bigger deal. What if these pictures needed to be available immediately? The person, whom the pictures really belonged to, may have been really upset if they weren’t. Then, I thought about how this could cost someone their job.

Guilt is a powerful motivation to do the right thing.

So I returned to CVS. The cashier/picture taker was the typical worker you might expect at a retail store. She didn’t seem very happy or welcoming. When she first saw me return there was some sense of fear in her eyes. She was already a little unresponsive when I first entered the store for the first time inquiring about picking up my prints and having my passport picture taken. She answered me with nods instead of “yes, sir” or “of course, you sexy bitch.” I’m really open to either.

Immediately she knew something was wrong when I walked back in. There was a sense of déjà vu on her face.

“No good?” she said, a little worried. It wasn’t an aww shucks thing either. She really thought she was about to get some hell for either taking a crappy picture or giving me the wrong ones.

“No, all of my pictures are in there. Someone else’s was too.” I said then handed back a stack of pictures of black people for which I had no real use.

She thanked me, as she should. It was a strange exchange and my hope is immediately jumping to the worst case scenario is something she won’t always do in the future. Nothing in her head clicked in those first few seconds that I could have possibly been returning to do her a favor.

The world is a terrible negative place. Keep some faith. Not everyone is out to get you. The worst case scenario isn’t always looming.