For this one you are going to have to think back to a certain time. A time when there were no cell phones with cameras on them. A time when there were no digital cameras at all, even the ones in which you inserted a 3.5″ floppy disk. Back to the time when you actually had to take the film from the camera to a photo shop to have it developed. You remember? Good. All the millennials will have to take my word for it. OK, let’s get this story started.

It was 1995 in Jacksonville, FL. I had been chatting for a while on a local Bulletin Board System (BBS) that had a whole whopping 8 lines. That was actually pretty impressive back then as most BBS’s only had 1 or 2 lines and there wasn’t much chatting on them. While the internet did exist, the world wide web was still in it’s infancy stage and not used by many. Most of the friends I had were people I met on the BBS. My girlfriend at the time was someone I met on the BBS. She and another friend of ours from the BBS decided to get an apartment together and we decided to have a houseapartmentwarming party. Is there such a thing as an apartmentwarming party? My spell checker says no. It’s probably right. Anyway, it was just an excuse to have what we called a GT, Get Together, also know as just a party.

Once my GF and Shye moved in and got settled they picked a date and invited everyone on the BBS to the GT. You might think Shye is a strange name, but that’s because it’s not really a name. That was her nick on the board and what most people called her, instead of her real name. You’ll also notice that I haven’t told you the nick or name of my girlfriend. There’s a reason for that. Later on in life she became my wife, then my ex-wife. She managed to cause all kinds of havoc in the years that followed, and I noticed if I said her name too much she would reappear in my life to cause more trouble. Kind of like Beetlejuice, except at least that guy was funny while he was fucking up your life. So I’ll just refer to her as my GF in this story.

The BBS we chatted on also had a number of underage users that we were on friendly terms with. They wanted to come to the GT too. However, from past experience with other GT’s we knew it was probably not a good idea to have minors around during the festivities. They were really upset and repeatedly asked us to reconsider in the days leading up to the GT. So we came up with a compromise. Any user under that age of 18 could come to the GT for the first two hours and then had to leave. Everyone else agreed to keep their adult partying impulses in check until the minors were gone. Everyone was good to their word and we had a good couple of hours of socializing with everyone, including the minors. When the time came, the minors left without complaint. Then things kicked into a higher gear.

More and more alcohol was consumed. People got crazier and crazier. Want some examples of the debauchery? Some women began to flash their wares. Other couples were making out, both men and women. Yes, this was an equal opportunity BBS where all were welcomed to share in the good nature depravity. At one point I remembered a well given visual presentation on how to use Ben Wa Balls. If you don’t know what that is then google it. I’m not even going to link to it. So needless to say, there were quite a few adult related activities that took place.

Some people had brought cameras with them. Old school cameras like I discussed above. Shye was one of these people and she had been taking pictures during the whole GT. Several days after the GT she dropped her roll of film off at a Walmart and waited a few days for it to be developed, as you had to do back then unless you wanted to pay extra for one hour development. A few days after that she went back to pick up the pictures. She gave her little ticket stub receipt to the photo tech, who was an older gentleman, and waited for him to retrieve the photos. As he walked back to her with the photo pack he had a grim look on his face. Shye’s (who didn’t get that nick for no reason) face flushed as she figured this guy must have been the one that actually developed the film and had seen some of the activities in the pictures. She didn’t know half the shit that was getting ready to go down. As she reached for the photo pack the guy held a firm grip on it, preventing her from picking it up. Here’s their conversation:

Photo Dude: There’s some interesting pictures on this roll of film.

Shye: Uhm, yeah. I know…

Photo Dude: Some of them I wasn’t allowed to develop.

Shye: Uh, yeah, OK… no problem.

Photo Dude: You know, I saw my daughter in these pictures!

Yup! That’s right. Of all the Walmarts in Jacksonville (a city of nearly a million people), and of all the photo techs in those Walmarts, Shye had taken her roll of film to be developed by the father of one of our 16 year old minors that had been at the GT! Shye turned fifty shades of red and tried to explain to the guy that his daughter had only been at the party before the adult images had been taken. You see though, there were no time stamps on old school photos. There were no captions. Nothing that could help prove the truth in what she was saying. No matter how she tried to explain during her sputtering, choked up speech, the dude did not believe her. She ended up prying the photo pack from the guy and rushing off. When she told us what had happened we all thought it was hilarious. She, on the other hand, nervously waited for a visit from the police that, thankfully, never came. We never did see that 16 year old user online again, for some reason I think we can all fathom.

In today’s world an ill conceived digital photo can get you in trouble in a heartbeat. But this goes to show you that even an old school photo could do the same thing in the right wrong circumstances.

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