Inevitably, the baby pictures surface. Mom, Dad or a vengeful sibling digs deep into the abyss of the living room bookcase and finds those Halloween photos and the standard naked bathtub pictures.
Your significant other never storms out of the room in disgust or demands an intervention because he or she feels you were sexually abused. Everyone had those pictures taken. Most of the people who possess them experience a relatively trauma-free childhood.
But if your parent's pictures had gone through Wal-Mart processing, you would not have them today.
Last year, a Kansas mother took photos of her three-year-old daughter topless in a swimming pool. Wal-Mart photo processing employees feared the photos were evidence of child abuse and called the police.
Police approached the mother as she was waiting for her photos to develop. She was then interrogated. When she was allowed to leave the store, she could not take the pictures with her.
Jim Hill, Police Chief of Salina, Kan., said officers had a duty to investigate to see if the photos provided evidence of child abuse, according to the Associated Press.
Police were dismissed from the case Wednesday.
Meanwhile, Wal-Mart lawyers argue the photos could lead a "reasonable person to conclude the child was being sexually abused," the Associated Press article stated.
If the police examined the personal photo albums of Wal-Mart's lawyers, they would probably find photos like the ones in question.
This Wal-Mart store has gone too ar. The employees invaded the privacy of a family.
It could be argued that Wal-Mart is taking precautions to look out for the best interest of its customers.
However, this last-ditch effort to purify America is not the first incident that called Wal-Mart's practices in question.
For a 1996 album, rock singer Sheryl Crow wrote a song about two Florida teens who shot people after purchasing guns at a Wal-Mart. She refused to delete the line, and the store refused to sell her album.
But have they stopped selling guns? No.
It looks like Wal-Mart is afraid to expose people to media that may cause the store to hurt itself or others. But Wal-Mart has no problem selling them the materials the complete the task.
On top of that, Wal-Mart employees will look through your photos and decide which they think are right for you to take home.
Wal-Mart prides itself on being America's store.
Aiding censorship efforts and violating privacy are two of the most un-American practices a company can exercise.