Saturday Night Special: That Girl Is Poison
January 15th, 2011
“This photo was taken in 1950 while our family was on a summer vacation at the Jersey Shore. I am the lovely creature on the left with a horrendous case of poison sumac and look like a creature from outer space. My two brothers seem only intent on shooting the photographer, and my mother, grandmother and grandfather seem unfazed by this weird person in the photo with them. How did I ever allow anyone to take my photo looking like this? I was just 6 years old and probably didn’t think twice about it at the time.”
(submitted by Margaret)
Tags: old timey
OMG>
I can’t stop laughing, tears are coming down my face
I had to leave the room where my boyfriend was sleeping because I couldn’t contain my laughter!!!
I laughed so hard, tears streamed down……
Love the title…Bell Biv Devoe song!
Cool that you can find humor in your own “awkward” photo!
This is by far the greatest picture on this website.. I laughed for a good ten minutes when I first saw it and still burst out laughing every time I look back at it!
I am literally crying from laughing. This is hands down the best photo on this site! This photo is just SO WRONG, it’s right! Made my day!
i was so afraid this was going to be about a burn victim:(
Even with the sumac, she looks happier than anybody else in that picture.
my thoughts r
exactly
The girl looks like one of the fish people from Innsmouth! (from the Chtulhu Mythos of H.P. Lovecraft)
Exactly! Just noticed that!
You poor thing! I feel your pain. Same thing happened to me on a camping trip at the age of 7. It was a nightmare. To this day, camping isn’t my favorite thing to do.
This reminds me of my boyfriend. He is especially sensitive to poison ivy; he has only had it once since I’ve known him and I’ve never seen anything like it. He calls it “skin from another planet”. He pulled two or three weeds out of the yard and the next day, the skin covering both of his arms had completely bubbled and started oozing. I had to smear cortizone and then wrap up his entire arm twice a day. And because it got on his hands, and then, being a guy, he scratched “some places”, he had to treat those as well.
He had also started a new job and I’m sure the customers weren’t entirely pleased to see someone with arms covered in bandages handing them food. A week or so later the skin finally stopped weeping. I then told him he wasn’t allowed to touch any plants ever again.
Long story short, I can imagine the poison sumac was pretty uncomfortable. But I think it’s kind of a sweet picture. And it’s kind of nice how time can turn something from painful to funny.
Poor thing!
Also, I’m loving that your dad is wearing a tie on vacation. I mean, why let loose, you know?
omg you poor thing! your write up is hilarious though, especially “creature from outer space”! I did the most ashamed but hearty lol ever.
I like “Quick Draw McGraw” there on the right. He’s shooting from the hip!
What’s super hilarious to me is that i didn’t read the caption at first, and felt bad for whoever was making fun of the….um, “special” girl on the left. i was seriously thinking there was some sort of disability involved here with her. But now that i’ve read the caption, i can laugh heartily….sans guilt!!! HA HA HA HA!!!!!!!!!!!!
let me clarify….i didn’t feel bad for WHOEVER was making fun of her. I felt bad for the fact that she was being made fun of, because i thought she was disabled
I was thinking that too before i read the caption. I looked at it and thought,”well this is indeed awkward, because I don;t think I should be laughing at this poor girl! How… why… this is just mean!” But then I read it, and laughed. Hard. In that, “oh my goodness, i still feel bad, but this is so amazingly awkwardly hilarious!” way.
Totally agree…thought it was pathetic then it was just painfully funny.
I suffered a similar fate with poison ivy and this makes me remember it sadly.
Lucky for me no cameras captured my moment of puffy embarrasment.
OMG. I just can’t contain myself. Every time I look at this my stomach tenses up and I start snorting with uncontrolled laughter. Ok let me try to gather myself and comment. I really love the boys cuffed up jeans. Oh and who’s “smiley” in the center of the back row? I think it’s probably Great Grandma who was the only one wise enough to know that this awkward moment caught on film forever was going to be her revenge on you kids long after she was gone. And YOU. Good Lord, girlfriend! You look the product of mommy’s little indiscretion with an alien! No wonder great grandma is grinning!
I think this is one of the greatest photos to appear on this site.
Loving your photo.
I feel terrible for laughing but it is ever so funny.
I hope you recovered back to your beautiful self!
Love the brothers. I’m dying to know what they did when they grew up.
Oh you poor thing! I know how you must have felt! I got a bad case of the sunburned body on the gulf coast one summer when I was about 8. I was swollen and miserable for the next few days. Asprin and tea compresses didn’t help.
I itch just looking at that por girl.
I’m so glad you can laugh at it! I personally was chuckling at the brother with the gun pointed at the camera!
What I don’t understand is why absolutly NO ONE is smiiling in this picture! I mean the little girl I can understand, bu no one else is either. Did Dad force them to have the picture and laughed as he took it because he didn’t have to be in it, or what?
Honestly, the girl looks like the happiest one in the photo!
Finally…….the inspiration for national lampoon is revealed.
Ahhhh family holidays. Good times!
awe, so sad!
Luckily Grandpa was a skin specialist. He started his business from scratch. And no,that is not a rash statement.
Love the matching mommy/daughter dresses! The boys match too!
As a Southern girl, all I can say is … Bless her heart!
I laughed until I cried at this photo. I can make the disclaimer that I too have had a much-ridiculed severe allergic reaction while on vacation. I feel your pain, but it’s funny years later.
What the heck were our parents thinking?! I have one of those way-too-short, way-too-crooked hair bangs photos. Every time I look at it, I think, “Didn’t they even look at me before someone took my picture?!” Maybe that’s why now I’m camera-shy…
I have one of the crooked bangs picture, as well. Only mine was way too long and was in my eyes.
Yeah, that is totally why the picture is awkward!
I’d say Granddad looks concerned….
I’m sure you were very pretty in there…somewhere..
As sympathetic as I am, you do resemble the computer generated product on one of those “if these two people made a baby” websites. I am thinking Winston Churchill is the father but I can’t quite place the maternal contribution.
I’m guessing Anne Ramsey, from “Goonies” and “Throw Momma from the Train” fame!
Oh, ouch! You are, however, absolutely correct.
I had the same thing happen to me by standing in the smoke of a fire where poison ivy was being burned. I feel ya’.
I had the same thing happen to me, poison ivy everywhere! It sucks!
And to Margaret, bless your little heart! I can’t imagine how horrible that must have been for you!
You poor little girl! And is Grandpa really on vacation?
Ah, good catch! Didn’t even notice him the first time. It must have been nice to visit Jersey Shore when it was still pastoral and quaint, instead of socially toxic like it is today.
Remember, being featured on AFP is not about embarrassment, but triumph. This is a great photo, and I’m pleased you also feel you can laugh about this today. Thank you for sharing with all of us!
You’ve never been to the Jersey Shore, have you? Yes, you should stay away from Seaside Heights (or “Sleaze-side” as we always called it) but there are still some great places to go “down the shore” that are quite beautiful and family friendly.
Oh, honey, I feel so bad for your six year old self! I hope you had fun at the shore before the poison sumac set in.
awwww! that’s sad. Looks like you needed a shot of prednisone.
I don’t think they had that in 1950. Calamine lotion was state-of-the-art back then.
Oh how I sympathize …. In 1970 when I was 5 I got a fully body sunburn in the Bahamas that got me hospitalized and I left looking like a mummy – covered from neck to toe with bandages and on my face enough cream for a party of 100. My mother – who was not on the trip – did immortalize my return with Polaroids but luckily they are nowhere to be found. You poor thing.
I have a similar picture of my two girls in matching bathing suits with pink eye… just getting OUT of the pool…taken BEFORE we realized they had pink eye!!! So, cute suits, swollen eyes…opps, this is contagious!! (my bad)
Oh, you poor poor thing.
Thanks for the explanation! Love the brothers & their guns. Feel bad for you, though! The adults just carried on as if nothing was out of the ordinary!
Isn’t it wonderful to be so oblivious to worries about how we look and just remember enjoying our time with loved ones now gone?
Ah yes..looks very uncomfortable, but makes for some good awkward fodder.
This very sad! Poor thing
i also enjoy your brother’s gun pointed right at the camera. classic!
Yes! Brothers love their sisters… …look at the young one. Ready to shoot if the older one misses. Heart breaking…
omg poor thing! looks so painful
That is horrible! Is that a fancy word for sun poisoning?
Poison sumac is like poison ivy or poison oak – very itchy rash.
It’s a plant poisoning, similar to poison ivy, common in the Pacific Northwest.
Well, the sun did allow this plant to grow, so maybe in that way its sun poisoning! Think poison ivy, only worse.
Oh that poor girl!!! At least you can laugh now.
You still look better than the likes of the people we hear about currently from Jersey Shore.
Win!
lmao
the original cast of jersey shore…snookie hasnt changed a bit!!!
HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! Awesome!
A DEFINITE WIN!
I’ll drink to that!
ha ha ha!!!
LMAO!! Yesss, she is 100 times better than Snooki