I scan photos into our system for engagements, wedding, and anniversary announcements and I often wish I could submit these photographs to Awkward Family Photos.com.

Seriously, some of these shots would be total classics. But I can't post these photos because I could lose my job for mocking our customers and especially for mocking them online.

It would be an invasion of privacy. A travesty. Grounds for a lawsuit.

Instead, I will describe a couple of these photographs to you and let you mentally visualize the horror that can be my job somedays.

First up is a photo that was submitted for an engagement announcement. It is a woman wearing a bright red dress with fluffy, red wings. Yes. You read that correctly, red, fluffy wings on her back. She is a woman with The Gift of the Bosom.

She might have to wear one of the bras dear Sis K talks about on her blog. Part of a black bra is showing at the top of her heaving bosom and her lips are caked in red lipstick, while her eyes are lined in heavy, black eyeliner.

Her husband-to-be, dressed completely formal and "normal", is kneeling at boob level, one arm around her waist, the other hand in hers.

As far as I know the man is kneeling because that's when I thought when I first looked at it, but when I showed it to a co-worker she said, "Is he a little person?"

Trust me, that would have made the photo even funnier.

I showed it to another co-worker and she remarked that she hoped the woman's husband-to-be didn't turn too quickly to say something to her. I followed up with "he'd get a full face of them, wouldn't he?"

The couple is getting married on Halloween, by the way. No surprise there.

The next photo I scanned in, incidentally on the same day, was for a 25th anniversary. The couple is walking into a fire hall, I gather, which isn't unusual.

What is unusual is that the man is about three steps behind the woman, casting her this look that says "Yeah, go ahead of me, honey. Whatever. I'm whipped." I have to wonder if she always makes him walk three steps behind her. I just found this an odd photo to place in the newspaper as your anniversary announcement.

Since I couldn't show any of their's I thought I'd show an awkward family photo of my own:

Seriously, what is that face my kid is making? And why does my 8-year old niece look slightly drugged?

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Jonathan and I were exploring at my parents back yard on Sunday when I spotted a Salamander. He was orange with bright spots and Jonathan was fascinated with him. Almost too fascinated as he tried to pick him up several times and then wanted to keep him in a cup and take him home.

We told him that he couldn't keep the "izzard" for very long because we didn't want it to get too stressed out (and, well, die).

Jonathan told me, "It won't die in a second. . ." as if to say, "Hey, he won't die right away, OK?" I finally convinced him to let the little guy go, promising we could look for another one later in the day. Jonathan held me to that plan.

Our walk to the ditch later in the afternoon brought another salamander into our view, but this one was squished on the road from a passing car. I winced when Dad pointed him out to me, because he was about the size and color of the one we had let go only a few moments before. Still, I would have been surprised if he had made it that far since the time we'd let him go. A few moments later, to my surprise, we found a living one.

This one was black and sleek and moved quickly, but not quickly enough to avoid Jonathan's pinching fingers, which picked him up several times and then put him back in the plastic dish we'd brought outside to put such creatures in.

At one point grandpa convinced Jonathan to let the Salamander crawl up into his hand and up his arm. Jonathan did, but then screamed and shook the creature off into the dirt.

Eventually that salamander did crawl off into the ditch, but I have a feeling he may have had some brain damage goin' on after all that throwing and tossing.

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