Today is "flight suit picture" day for us interns. I am disappointed to find out that instead of playing astronaut dress-up, we are playing pilot dress-up, but I bear up well. Dress-up was my favorite game as a kid and things haven't changed much. Some people, however, are too cool to participate.
"Uh, I didn't sign up for it." Amp&Effects tries to do a quick fade back into his office.
"You didn't have to sign up. This is for everyone. C'mon, Amp&Effects, you'll really want this picture in twenty years, I promise you." I speak from experience.
"Uh. I'll probably be back next summer. I'll do it then."
"You could get your picture taken today and then you'd have two pictures."
He finally manages to disengage himself and I go over to the hangar alone. Out on the tarmac, a sparse group of students in flight suits waits in line near a small jet. I see that Amp&Effects is not the only cool intern. Based on the small number of students present, I'm guessing that seventy-five percent of the interns are very cool indeed. I join the uncool and enter the hangar where I'm given a flight suit to pull on over my clothes.
"Here, adjust these," says one of guys handling flight suit distribution. He pulls on the Velcro tabs at my waist.
"Oh, these are so slimming," I say as I adjust the wrist straps.
"Yes, the government spends lots of money to make sure these are stylish," he says.
"I'm sure."
I go back out to the plane and get in line. I watch my fellow interns pose for the camera. A helmet has thoughtfully been provided for us to tuck under one arm for added verisimilitude. The short people stand on a little box beside the plane, the tall people stand beside the box. We all have different shoes on. Some of the girls are wearing high heels and sundresses beneath their flight suits.
It's gorgeous out, by the way. Sunny, a little haze to soften the light, we're out in the country so it's quiet, except for the fighter planes taking off from the air force base next door. I look back towards the hangar. A "meatball" (the agency logo) twenty feet in diameter is blazoned above the doors and above that is a white, spherical tank. It seems that every building at the facility is required to have a huge white sphere associated with it in some way. It's like interning at Epcot Center.
Back at the head of the line, an intern wants to make things interesting. He asks, "Can I make it like an action shot? Like I'm about to hop in the plane and fly off?" He's a non-traditionally aged intern (I think), like me, and bears more than a passing resemblance to Tim Allen (in more ways than one, I suspect).
"Whatever you want," the photographer says.
"Cool! How's this?" He poses. The helmet under his left arm and the other hand resting on the plane, he hunches down as if in mid-hop and looks back over his shoulder. The huge goofy grin rather subtracts from the dramatic value of the pose.
"Great." She snaps a picture.
Further contortions. "And this?"
"Okay."
I didn't have the nerve to go that far with my picture. I just stood there and smiled. I suppose I might have a little too much coolness after all. Maybe I'll be back next summer and I'll ham it up then.
585 words | July 7, 2004 08:54 PM | Rocket science