An Uncomfortable Embrace.

I just want you all to study this picture for a minute. 

Are you feeling uncomfortable yet? There's so much that's wrong about this picture that I want to talk about. Let's start with the creepy mustache man. First of all, he's embracing a younger boy and his eyes are closed. He appears to be a little too into it. And his hands are interlocked around the boy as though he's planning on lingering in that position a little longer than he probably should. Now, the younger boy isn't doing much better. He's really into it too. And his arms are up around the man's neck. Who hugs like that? I mean, maybe they're dancing instead of hugging...

Here's a neat fact: this picture is in a test booklet that is given to kindergarten students. Every time that I give this test, I just feel uncomfortable when I get to this question. This picture is in the listening comprehension portion of the test and I say, "The boy is hugging Grandmother" or some crap like that and the kids are supposed to pick the picture of the boy hugging grandma. There are 4 picture choices and the boy hugging smiling mustache man is one of the other choices that's thrown in. If this picture were the answer, I'd probably have to say, "Mark the picture of the two males having an awkward and inappropriate embrace."

We just took this particular reading test a couple of weeks ago and as I was grading the booklets I talked to my Assistant about this picture and just how wrong it seems. She was saying that she's never observed her own husband and son's hugs to ever resemble anything close to this. She said, "I don't know what I would do if I saw them do that, you know, with their arms wrapped around each other like that. That's just not natural." I said, "I know what you'd do. You'd tell them to never, ever do that again".