Thanks to a prank pulled by my rascally husband, I found myself in a pretty awkward situation yesterday.

See, there's this beautiful picture frame Chip purchased for the monthly profile shot of me and my belly. While the frame itself is gorgeous, the faux snapshot that comes with it is not.

I have never seen such an ugly baby in my life, and I'm typically pretty generous when it comes to finding beauty. I can usually find some facet of loveliness to focus on that transforms the rest of the image.

Not this time.

There's a Seinfeld episode where Jerry, Elaine, George, and Kramer have a friend who keeps insisting, “You gotta see the bay-bee. You gotta see the bay-bee!” Jerry and his friends finally give in but can't look for more than a second without jerking their heads away in horror. Kramer actually goes into spasms at the sight.

It's that bad.

I can't help but wonder about the back story behind that photograph. Of all the cute babies on earth, why would anyone use that one? Was it the child or grandchild of the president of the frame company? Or maybe this same president and his/her spouse got a divorce, and the judge decided to divvy up the company profits between them. In an effort to stick it to the ex, the president found the ugliest photo he/she could find and put it in the picture frame to discourage any sales.

Whatever the case, Chip and I had a good laugh over the photo and started passing it back and forth, kind of like Hot Potato. It's like the thing had bad mojo, and neither of us wanted to be the one stuck with it. So then he took it to a whole new level, pretending to be mature about it and letting me think I had won. Until later in the evening when I turned the covers down and found the thing nestled beneath the sheets on my side of the bed.

Not to be outdone, I unrolled the toilet paper roll just enough to slide the picture in where my husband would find it the next time he visited the bathroom. I heard a laugh shortly after he went in there. Minutes later he came into the bedroom with a big grin on his face, shaking his finger at me.

I didn't think much more about it until yesterday afternoon when I opened my notepad to conduct an interview with the newly elected state senator from Peachtree County. I turned the page and there was that photo, looking like the genetic mutation produced by lab experiments in the recent horror film Splice. It was all I could do to keep a straight face and not burst into laughter.

So how am I getting him back? Let's just say a bunch of TSA agents out at the airport should be getting a pretty good laugh at my husband's newly doctored identification badge right about now.