Somewhere out there, in a drawer perhaps or buried in a box, or maybe - if your parents have a really good sense of humor - hung on your living room wall, is a perfectly awful school picture of you. Your hair is a knotted mess, you’re wearing a dirty shirt, or you’re smirking, frowning or making some totally unflattering face. Whatever the circumstances, it’s a rare human who gets through their childhood without at least one embarrassing school photo.

Childhood can be an awkward time. Kids lose their teeth and their adult replacements are about three times the size, turning them into woodchucks. Hair works its way free from braids and ponytails or “does the Alfalfa,” as we like to say in our family when one lock on the crown stands straight up. Kids get dirty, kids get rumpled and kids don’t always like to smile on cue.

And yet I can’t help but notice that the photos I take of my own kids in their rumpled, dirty, messy-haired, big-toothed glory don’t make them look like carnival freaks at all; but normal, happy, and dare I say, cute instead. And I’m no pro.

Strangely, however, the so-called professional school photographers - you know, the company that’s been taking bad pictures of my kids and their classmates for decades - is still in business.

It’s because parents are suckers.

Despite that the unprofessional snapshots I take of my kids are about ten times better than anything they’ve ever brought home from school, I still feel obligated to purchase school pictures.

First of all, the ordering process seems to use some kind of witchery to confuse parents. For example, I need a 5×7 for us and the grandparents, and 3×5s for aunts and uncles, and 2×3 wallets for extended family. But a typical package might contain one 11×13 picture and 32 one-inch wallets. I can never get those coveted 5×7s and the 3×5s in one reasonably-priced package. Actually, none of the packages are what I’d call “reasonably priced” considering the quality.

Chances are good I’ll never send out the school portraits, choosing instead to bless my relatives with photos that don’t make my children look like mutants.

Every year, I look at the huge stack of unattractive leftover pictures littering my office and swear that next year, I’ll skip the school pics. But every fall that order form comes home and somehow I get suckered in again.

Like this year. After agonizing over the package and picture options, I finally wrote out a hefty check and sent the form and my kids to school with the highest expectations.

The three of them left looking well-groomed and well-rested. Not one of them went to school that day with messy hair, turned-up collars or severe depression. So imagine my surprise when a couple of weeks later, they brought home pictures that made them look like Bart Simpson, Elvis and a future serial killer.

Perhaps instead of saying “Smile!” before taking the shot, the photographer - and I use that term loosely - said something like “I torture puppies!” Truly, that’s the only explanation I can come up with for Isaac’s somber expression.

I’d send them back in for retake day, but the last time I did that, the retakes were actually WORSE than the originals.

I know it must be beyond difficult to photograph a school full of children and try to turn out halfway decent pictures. But this is the year 2007, people. Take a few digital shots and dump the ones that make the children look maniacal or on the verge of tears. Or put them up online and give parents the option of choosing the picture they like before they plunk down their hard-earned money on a package.

But why should they change? After all, their business model seems to be working out for them. Even after railing about how bad our photos are, I missed the one-day cutoff for refunds. I have to imagine many busy parents do.

Looks like Bart, Elvis, and the serial killer are here to stay.