ready for a life of crime

in preparation for the bar (nervous laughter) we all need to get fingerprinted. the school had someone come in so that we could do it on campus. they have a special machine that scans your fingers and uploads them onto the computer. the nice man working the machine takes hold of each finger, wets it, rubs it, and then places it on the screen to be scanned. if it's a good print, a green bar will flash and the nice man will then take hold of your next finger and start the whole process again.

but if it's a bad print (doesn't capture the whole image well, smeared, too faint) then a red bar flashes and the nice man has to start the whole process again on that finger.

apparently, i have a lot of bad fingers. all my prints are faint ("see, your swirls are so light"), and the finger print man thinks that i have a 50/50 chance of having my prints rejected by the state bar for being too difficult to read.

and no, it's nothing i did. apparently, it's a mix of genetics, washing my hands too much, gardening, etc etc. apparently, i am in the 20th percentile of difficult prints; i don't even know what that means, really.

"so since i have faint prints, that means i can now commit my life to crime?"

he peered up at me and very plainly stated "the cops use full palm prints, so no."

"oh."