Why is it when someone wants to show me a picture on their phone (that I probably don’t really care to see in the first place) they can never find it? One would think if the picture was that great that it had to be shared with the world, it would be front and center. Or already on Facebook. But it never is. It is always several swipes back, hiding in the middle of thousands of other pictures, which the seeker has to slog through to find “the one.” This usually occurs when I’m super busy or in the middle of doing something else. Then I’m held captive waiting for the other person to finally retrieve the elusive picture so I can get on with my life.

I realize that in this day and age of sharing photos of everything with everybody that I’m a relative hermit. I figure that most people don’t really want to see scads of my personal photos any more than they want to be forced to sit down and watch hours upon hours of my home videos. Although highly entertaining to me, I can understand that others might not appreciate them as much as I do. This is why it is rare for me to share pictures other than on Facebook. Then people can look at them or not, as they wish, without having to politely wait around for me to find the one I want. The other reason is that most of the pictures in my phone are of veterinary radiographs and gross things that most people would find disgusting, rather than fascinating as I do.

I can justify my bizarre photo gallery by the fact that it is easier to take a picture of a digital X-ray on my cell phone to show to clients rather than drag them to the back of the clinic to view the images on a computer monitor. In the olden days, we had physical X-rays that we mounted on a viewing screen in the exam room. But, alas, those days are long gone. I also frequently take pictures of tumors, wounds, surgeries, and other assorted gross things that I want to follow up on or just find interesting. I’m sure that to anyone other than another veterinarian, normal people would find these photos strange. And hopefully, the police don’t ever get ahold of my cell phone, or my search engine history for that matter. Writers conduct a lot of bizarre searches.

So, if you are desperately thumbing through your phone for a picture that I absolutely must see, and it starts getting close to dinner time and I am yawning and shuffling my feet and looking at my watch, and I politely say, “That’s okay, I can see it later,” please take the hint and let it go. Otherwise, I might be forced to share one of my pictures with you. Don’t make me do that.