I wrote FAKED XRAY across the corner of this back in march and then did nothing with it for seven months, which I know how that sounds, I know, but you dont throw out evidence just because you dont have the week free to deal with what it says, you file it (I keep everything, thats a different problem, I have written about that problem before and I will again. march was already a bad month before this, the masked photo someone sent me was the same month and that one had a side-of-the-face problem too, wrong side, which I did not think about again until last night. I went back into my own folder because I needed something that wasnt another truck or another light on a pole for once, people are going to start thinking thats all there is, and I found this, and I remembered exactly why I flagged it in march, and then I looked closer at the same file I have apparently been looking at for seven months and found a second thing I never flagged the first time.

Top corner, theres a postioning marker, an L, for left, standard, I checked that, that part is fine. Under it is the position word, the word a tech is supposed to print so whoever reads the film later knows how I was standing, and the word is ERECT, and it is mirrored. Backward. Hold the file up to a mirror, or flip it in any editor, I did both, same result both times, every letter reversed and in the right order, which matters, because a smudge reverses one letter by accident and this reversed all five on purpose. A flipped film is not a typo. a typo is dont instead of don't, a letter dropped, a letter swapped. this is the whole plate, printed through the back of itself. I called the number on the old paperwork and asked if the machine can do that on its own, print backward, and the guy actually laughed before he caught himself and said no, not that model, not physically, somebody would have had to flip the film or the file after it came off the machine. they always say it was routine, recalibration, somebody touches everything eventually, like that explains why mine came out mirrored and the ones before it didnt.

anyway. the folder date and the properties date on this file dont agree, theres a nine day gap between when I know I was sitting in that chair and when the file says it was taken. around march, late march maybe, doesnt matter, it was MARCH. nine days. Ive counted it four separate times now and it comes out nine every time, not eight, not ten, nine. my dad used to tell me if the paperwork disagrees with your memory you trust the paperwork, hes been dead six years and I still hear him say it every time a date doesnt line up, and I dont anymore, trust the paperwork I mean, Im not revising the six years part.

Coincidence? no.
Im not scared of the spine in this picture.
im scared of the label over it.