Brazilian Girls

At first glance, you might think this is a picture of some lady just talking to the guy next to her. Then you might study it a little more closely and think it is funny that the guy is not looking at her when she is obviously trying to get a major point across. Perhaps, like Scott, you look at the picture and say, 'that is not a woman, there is too much upper lip hair!' But I assure you, it was a woman and there was a very good reason the man next to her would not look at her, but instead plastered a tolerant grin on his face. In fact, I could have taken this picture at any time within a 20 minute time frame and the shot would be the same.
I'll start at the beginning of the thousand words this picture may capture. Friday night I decided to call up some friends, and they were out saving seats at a free concert in the park. A group called the Brazilian Girls was playing who I'd never heard of, but I figured I'd come along for the company and maybe I'd end up enjoying the music. So there we were sitting in our seats saving a few for people who happened to get up to go get a drink or go to the bathroom, when this lady and her daugher show up and try to walk past us. We politely informed her that the seats she was aiming for were taken. So we dind't think much of it until we turned around and saw her in the row behind, coaxing her daughter to hop over the chairs. So I walked over and again, politely said that the seats were taken. She informed me that we couldn't save that many seats, and I tried to explain that the people were here and would be back any minute. She kept talking at me for awhile and another friend tried to come over and talk reason but we realized it wasn't worth talking anymore, so we went back to our seats. Here's where we made our big error, for some reason we did not try to block the daughter when she again came around and tried to enter our row. At the direction of her mother she sat in the saved seats. Us ladies decided to let the large men with us deal with the situation when they returned.

Our friend Eric is not a person who just lets things slide. He is a man of action, and true to form, when he got back and realized that someone had taken his seat he tried to reason with the unreasonble person. He almost suceeded at convincing the poor daughter to move. She was obviously uncomfortable and just wanted to leave, but her mother wouldn't let her. So Eric declares that he's going to get security. I had my doubts that security would come, I figured they didn't want to get involved in a seat argument. While Eric was gone, the lady starts talking at the person next to her, because apparently she had stolen their friend's seat, so he said a few words and finally just quit talking and turned away. As evidenced by the picture, she was talking and talking and talking. Then her eyes started to bug out Rodney Dangerfield style and I thought I should take a picture to share with you all. The photo didn't turn out very well, so I put my camera away and waited for Eric to return. When he did, he told the lady that he had asked the police to come and they were on their way. I was sure he was bluffing, but the conversation continued and at some point the lady starts yelling at me. She is saying that I took a picture of her, but she was far enough away and the opening act was playing loudly enough that I could just pretend not to be able to hear her. I thought that at worst she might get up to come tell me that I took a picture of her and someone could get their seat back. I was also with several large men which helped. So there she is yelling at me trying to get her daughter to pass on what she's saying when Eric starts to pull out his camera, well that is just too much for her and she takes an aggresive swipe at him. Unbeknownst to her, Eric saw the cops walking up and at that point, they couldn't stand idly by while a lady assaulted a man. So the cop pulls her and her daughter out of their seats and stands there, letting her argue with him for awhile. Eventually the conversation turns to the fact that I took a picture of her, which by the way is totally legal since we were in a very public space. So the cop asked if I took her picture and I said I had taken a picture of the crowd, yes. He argues awhile more with her and finally turns to me and asks me to delete the picture. I said "ok". Eventually, he managed to get the lady and her poor daughter out of there, and we got to watch the concert from prime seats. I've made it a point to know the laws in the city, and I often even carry around a copy for people who try to stop me from taking pictures since it is expressly permitted by law. Moral of the story, know your rights and don't let people into your row, it will just make trouble.