Twenty days ago, my dear friend Faustus ordered a singing telegram for his boyfriend, E.S.’s, birthday. The singing telegram arrived in the shape of a chicken that serenaded Dr. E.S. in the cancer ward in which he was working.

Last week, Faustus emailed me a photograph of the event. Because he wanted to post documentary evidence of the chicken on his anonymous web log, I volunteered to optimize the image and at the same time obscure E.S.’s face to protect his identity. The problem was that Faustus finds the traditional methods of hiding features in photographs—pixelization or a black bar across the eyes—“creepy.”

So I invented a new way, which Faustus finds so supremely creepy that he won’t post it at all. Luckily, I have no such qualms:

To make the image less spine-chilling, I employed the following attempt at joviality, which he claims is creepier still:

Honestly. Some people are never satisfied.