By Vesna Jaksic Lowe
Thank you for entrusting us with photos of your pre-kindergartener holding a half-bitten but never browning apple while balancing a ruler and a wide-ruled composition notebook on her head. We hope you enjoy this year’s backdrop of wooden crates stuffed with gourds next to a wagon overflowing with plastic leaves and fake acorns. We think you’ll agree the fall theme looks truly inviting and so natural when wedged between Miss Susan’s supplies closet and the classroom’s dry-erase board.
As you know, we like to strike a balance between our marketing as a progressive public school and our more traditional beliefs, so girls will again have the option of a pink background with rainbow unicorn vomit, while boys will get to pick their favorite weapon. In case our embrace of diversity was not obvious enough when we started offering Taco Tuesdays and incorporated “S is for sushi” in our vocabulary exercise, female-identifying students will now be able to borrow the school’s official Black Doll for their photos.
Please choose no fewer than four but no more than five of the following packages:
1. “Social Services Material” Package: $49.99
You obviously get nothing, but we reserve the right to use little Madison’s photo in our promotional materials, including subway ads, iPhone covers, and SkyMall onesies.
2. “Shitty Parent” Package $99.99
Watermarked pea-sized photo of a randomly selected child
3. “Basic Parent” Package $149.99
0.1x 0.2 photo of your child
8×10 photo of the classroom hamster
Our downloadable e-guide, “How to pull yourself by the bootstraps so you can afford private school”
4: “Millennial Mom” Package: $699.99
One digital download of an outtake. Select from photos of Madison throwing toilet paper at the assistant teacher, flicking snot at the photographer, or blowing her nose into the classroom’s divider curtain.
5: “No Judgment” Package: $899.999
Your choice of an 8×12 photo of your child or the class photo,* but definitely not both
* Please note that some students’ faces will be covered in Peppa Pig stickers to protect their privacy because their parents did not sign the release form. For confidentiality reasons, we cannot divulge which ones, but it’s somewhere between 1/3 and ½ of the class, and this definitely includes Madison’s BFF.
6: “Private School” Package: $45,000
The above package and:
– one 3D model of your child
– one hologram of the head teacher
– one laser-cut life-sized silhouette of the school janitor
– one GIF, meme, anime, emoji, Boomerang, and Tik Tok video of either your child or the gym teacher – take your pick!
– a CD containing a slide show of the entire class’s worst outtakes
– a 90-minute documentary featuring a behind-the-scenes look of your child’s photo shoot
– your choice of either the school principal’s wedding album or the assistant teacher’s childhood album
Add-ons
$199.99 Hair and makeup
The Pre-k Squad will ensure Madison is ready for her close-up by taking care of everything from fake eyelashes and colored contacts to hair extensions
$299.99 Professional Editing
Highly recommended, given the mix of snot, raisins, and sunflower butter in Madison’s hair
$399.99 One-on-one training session
In this 60-minute individualized workshop, your child will learn the tools and tricks of Instagram-ready snaps that will put other pre-kindergarteners to shame, including the pouty pre-k pose, the teachable tummy tuck, and our signature sexy student stare.
$499.99 Selfie sensation
Your child will be able to take up to seven selfies with our photographer’s professional DSLR camera. *
*Please include a $3,500 non-refundable security deposit.
$599.99 “The Future is Bright”
This social media-optimized service includes a hashtag designed with Madison’s fashion personality in mind and the use of our top pre-k and kindergarten influencers to boost her class photo Twitter campaign. You’ll get text-ready images you can SMS to her pediatrician, your UPS delivery guy, and your mother-in-law.
Payment: We are only accepting money orders, Swiss francs, or cash, which must be exact change plus a $19.99 inconvenience fee.
Please mark your choices with a Graf von Faber-Castell Pen within 17 to 29 hours of receiving this document, after which it will self-destruct. Return it in a gold-embossed, contour-flap envelope sealed with crimson red wax and engraved with your child’s and dog’s initials and deliver during the 7:52-7:59 am drop-off any day over the next eight days, unless it falls on School Administration Day, Parent-Teacher Conference Day, Class Field Trip Day, Early Dismissal Day, Late Start Day, It May or May Not Snow Day, or the day before, immediately after or 2.75 days after the Winter Break.
You will receive your photos in eight to eleven months, or when your child is in the next grade level, whichever comes later.
Thank you for helping make this year’s mandatory Class Photo Day a success!
*****
About the Author
Vesna Jaksic Lowe is a writer and communications consultant in New York. Website: www.vesnajaksic.com Twitter: @vesnajaksic