At Freeman’s Grub & Pub on June 7, the selfie booth screen lit up and stalled at 3. Kayla flinched, then laughed, and the whole group scattered out of frame like they had been caught. No attendant around, just us and the glowing ring light, trying again while someone balanced a half-finished fry boat on the corner of a high-top.
The Booth Line Started Early
It began with a small crowd drifting over from the bar, phones in one hand, pint glasses in the other. Someone propped the “tap to start” sign with a sugar packet so it would stop sliding. Jacob tried to run the first group and tapped too hard. The screen bounced and took a picture of the ceiling. Everyone groaned and leaned back in, cheeks touching, a mess of corsages and sleeves and a stray boutonniere that had lost two petals.
I ended up becoming the unofficial explainer. Tap once. Wait for the countdown. Step in. The first round went through and a burst of light made everybody blink. We all grabbed for our phones like it was candy. Since there were no prints, people hovered, texting the photos to themselves and shouting out numbers. A stranger next to me squinted at the form and dictated slowly, then laughed when he realized he had swapped two digits.
“Text it to me. No, the other number.”
By then we had a rhythm. Three at a time. Shoulders in. Tilt heads. Somebody always blinked. Nobody seemed to mind.
Back for Round Two
After a while, folks started circling back. Jamie dragged his cousin over again because their first picture had caught him mid-sip. Annie returned with her sister and fixed a hairpin that had gone rogue. We did a whole set of “serious faces” that collapsed into grins on the last shot. The photo booth kept catching us right before we were ready and those were the ones we wanted most.
The standout moment came when the wings hit the room. A little line formed while everyone balanced napkins and messy fingers. Ben, who had been guarding a plate like treasure, insisted on one quick set. He tapped the screen with sauce on his thumb. There was this comma-shaped smear of barbecue across the glass, dark and shiny. He tried to wipe it off with a cocktail napkin, made it worse, then gave up and pulled us in anyway.
The countdown flashed 3 and Kayla was still chewing a carrot stick. At 2, Ben remembered to hide his plate, tucked it low like a secret. At 1, the light went off and caught all of it. My left eye half closed, his grin wide and guilty, Kayla with a carrot in her cheek like a chipmunk. We stared at the preview and howled. Ben cleaned the screen with the edge of his tie, which only kind of worked. We kept that one. We sent it to five phones.
Somewhere in there, the manager walked by and straightened the little sign again. People cheered for no clear reason. The room smelled like fries and something sweet from the dessert table. Greensboro, NC hummed outside the front windows while we lined up again.
Near the Patio Doors
Toward the end of the night, we moved the crowd a foot to the left to stop blocking a server with a tray of sliders. The same faces kept showing up. Annie’s sister came back to take solo photos because her mom wanted one. An older couple tried a practice pose, didn’t like it, and tried again. He adjusted her wrist gently so the corsage faced the camera. They held still like it mattered and it did.
By the last round, the screen had tiny fingerprints all over it. The ring light warmed our faces and made the pub’s brick wall look softer than it really is. We squeezed in, tapping careful this time. The timer started. Someone behind me whispered for one more, just in case. The flash blinked. We stayed there a second longer, still crowded together, waiting for the preview to pop up. Then we all reached out at once.
