My Annoyance with ID Pictures

My school ID has been bugging me lately. I know that sounds pretty ridiculous, but when I got back to campus at the beginning of the week and had to start looking at it daily again, I started getting really annoyed with my picture on it. It's not this huge annoyance. I'm not spending hours obsessing over it like I am other annoyances this week, but every time I look at it I get a small feeling of annoyance, even if it goes away soon after I put the ID away.

Everyone always complained about school pictures, but I was never particularly bothered. Yeah, they end up in the yearbook, but honestly, yearbooks aren't looked at that often. Plus, yearbook photos don't usually turn out that bad. I have a few examples of some not so great ones in my yearbooks at home, but most of the time everyone looks decent. ID photos, on the other hand, always look horrible. I have yet to see a flattering one on anyone. You just can't do it. They never have good lighting. They don't care about how you pose or the angle. And most of the time you can't even smile.

Of course I have this problem with my driving permit as well. That picture is actually worse than my student ID. However, I never even look at my permit. It just sits in my wallet, and I never even look at it when I open my wallet for something else. My student ID is something I have to look at multiple times daily though. I don't know if other schools do this or if it's a rarer thing, but our student IDs are necessary. If I leave my dorm room without it, I'm screwed. It acts as an electronic key to get back into both my dorm building and my specific floor. Plus, I pay for my meals in the dining hall with it, as well as being able to use it to pay at the Subway and cafe on campus.

That means I'm carrying the ID around with me everywhere throughout the day, and I'm always looking at it. I have to face that picture far more often than I do my permit picture. My student ID picture was taken at the very beginning of my freshmen year. The worst part is that I had just cut all my hair off, so it's pretty short in the picture. I don't really regret cutting my hair off because I donated it to Locks of Love and that's great, but I absolutely hated having that short of hair. Plus, I'm still trying to grow it back out, and every time I see that picture I'm instantly reminded of my annoyance at how slow my hair's growing. Also, this isn't really an annoyance, but I've started dying my hair since the picture, so my hair's different in that way too.

I know I'm going to have to keep staring at that ID for another two years at least, so I"m going to have to suck it up and ignore it. That is, unless I lose my ID or something and have to get a new one, but that would be another problem all on its own. I guess unflattering ID pictures are just one of those things you have to put up with in life. I'm never going to escape it.