By Art Buchwald
Tuesday, September 19, 2006

There are now 340 million digital cameras and video recorders in the United States and 123 million grandchildren.

It is no secret why. Digital cameras and recorders give us instant satisfaction.

There's a good side and a bad side to this. The good side is that you can take as many pictures as you want, depending on the memory card. You can erase the ones you don't like and print the ones you do on your photo printer.

The downside is that, after you have taken 1,000 pictures, no one wants to look at them.

Click once and immediately you have a picture to show off what a clever fellow or lady you are.

Mark Montigny just came back from a visit with his son in Omaha. He called me and said, "Do you want to come over to my house? I have pictures of my grandchildren."

I told him, "I don't look at pictures of other people's grandchildren. They don't do anything for me. Besides, my grandchildren are much better-looking."

I could tell Montigny was disappointed. He said, "When you went to Disneyland last winter I looked at your pictures, and frankly, even the ones of Mickey Mouse didn't move me."

I told him, "I stopped looking at other people's grandchildren three months ago, when Gizzard made us sit in his cellar the whole night looking at slides of his grandkids."

Montigny said, "This camera cost me $500 and all I have to do is aim and click. I don't even have to focus."

"I'm impressed, but why should I feel obligated to see your pictures?"

Montigny replied, "Because you made us look at all the pictures you took in Rome."

I said, "Rome is a holy city and you're just jealous because you never got there."

Montigny complained, "I pretended I wanted to see Rome, but I didn't think you'd show me every piazza in the city."

"At this moment I'm not in the mood to see any pictures of grandchildren. The trouble with grandparents is that they don't want to show you just one picture."

Montigny asked, "What's the harm of a few photos?"

I said, "I'll tell you what. One day at the bus stop a guy came up to me and I thought he was a mugger. Instead of hitting me in the kidneys, he showed me 30 snapshots of his grandchildren and made me miss the bus."

Montigny said, "Okay, how about this? I'll e-mail my pictures from the computer so you don't have to come over."

I replied, "That doesn't work because you'll fill up my hard drive and I won't have room for important things -- like pictures of my grandson. Nobody should be forced to look at someone else's grandchildren."

Montigny said, "I'll make a deal with you. I'll let you show me pictures of your grandchildren if I can show you mine."

2006Tribune Media Services