My sister and I are on an epic adventure, retracing some of the footsteps from our very earliest youth. One of these steps is a place we've visited before: Wayside Inn Grist Mill in Sudbury. This stop is in the middle of our epic adventure experience, so we spread out a blanket and throw our lunch feast all over the space.
Although this is a lovely place for a photo shoot (people shoot photos here all the time), this seems more like a low-budget pre-porno promo model shoot than a scenic landscape shoot. Suddenly, out of nowhere, a third woman arrives, professional camera in tow. She shoots a few pictures of the two women; she checks her camera; the the duo departs. Camera Woman remains behind, mere feet from the trickling waterfall (if one can call the slow but steady drizzle a waterfall) that spills from the top of the mill's outer wall.
She focuses on the water and takes picture after picture after picture after picture ... of the same spot. We would like to snap photos of the Grist Mill, too, but Camera Woman refuses to move. She can see we are trying not to snap pictures of her ass, but still, she stays right where she is. Snap. Snap snap. Snap snap snap snap snap... Photo after photo after photo of the same damn spot on the side of the building, then she checks the camera after each and every single shot like she's a photographic idiot savant.
My sister and I pack up the remainder of our lunch, walk to the car, put everything away, then walk back to the Grist Mill, clearly jockeying to take pictures. Nope, No can do. Camera Woman, now also known as My Fat Ass Will Be In Everyone's Photos Woman, refuses to yield. I even make some loud commentary. No way. She's not budging from that spot on the wall.
We walk to the back of the mill, climb the stone steps to the high lawn, and attempt to sneak to the top of the mill where we can look down on Camera MFAWBIEP Woman. My sister calls me back, deciding a stroll to the nearby Wayside Inn should give the idiot savant enough time to take more professional photos of the one spot on which she is fixated.
We take our damn time ambling along the stream and laughing at the strange people in the inn, like the old guy with no luggage who walks up the stairs to an expensive room with a clerk in front of him and a young woman behind him. "This is my WIFE!" he yells to the entire inn, as if we should either congratulate him or all nod that his afternoon delight is not with a hooker (as it appears to be). So much for Wayside Inn propriety.
The trip to the inn, the lollygagging at the nearby schoolhouse and church, and our lunch break on the mill grounds has given Camera Woman an hour to work. When we return, we are certain that she must be done.
No. We are mistaken.
Now, I am certain I could ask her politely to move, or I could say to her, "Listen, honey. Other people want to take some pictures. Could you please stop taking photos of the tiny speck of stone beneath that exact water trickle long enough for us to take two or three photos of the Grist Mill without your left butt cheek messing up the ambience?" You know, or something equally friendly, said as sweetly as only I can say it. (Stop laughing.)
And here is my Ludacris moment. Suddenly, in my brain, I am singing along and banging out the rhythm with my clearly annoyed footsteps and huffing. "Move, bitch, get out the way. Get out the way, bitch, GET OUT THE WAY!" Sing it with me; you know you want to.
It must be me. Honestly. Somehow they find me; they always find me. I am flypaper for freaks, and while we do not get any truly great pictures of the Grist Mill due to the OCD photographer, I do snap about five pictures of her because I know in my heart that the bitch is going to get out the way right into my blog, and it doesn't get much more ludicrous than that.
