Turning 53

First, let me describe myself.
I am five-foot ten inches tall, with green eyes, brown hair, and a 32-inch waist. I mention my waist size because this will illustrate the puzzling and dreadful change that has come over mirrors. I am not muscular by any means, but I'm reasonably fit.
When I look in the mirror instead of myself, there's a strange man. He offers no threat and seems good-natured enough. When I raise my arm, he raises his just as if he were my actual reflection, but he is clearly not. For one thing, he's bald. I, as I have mentioned, have brown hair. What hair he does have, has a little brownish to it, but it's mostly gray. I have nothing against bald men; long ago I resolved that if in the fullness of time, I lost my hair I would accept it gracefully, but I decided I would never go bald with two side-walls of hair over each ear and a shiny dome with a few stray hairs clinging to the top, like Larry from the Three Stooges. And this is precisely the way the man in the mirror is bald, so you can see, it is clearly not me.

When I take off my shirt, the result is even more startling. Again, I am no Adonis, but I am reasonably fit. In Romeo and Juliet, the nurse describes the handsome Count Paris, as a "man of wax." The man in the mirror, however, resembles Count Paris if he'd been left in a hot car for several hours on a July afternoon. There is sort of a melted look around the chest and torso, whereas the middle is thickened, and somewhat jiggly as if a semi-liquid substance were stored there.
If this had only occurred in one mirror, perhaps I might treat it as a harmless, if mystifying novelty: but it is not. It is all reflective surfaces. Even digital cameras have been affected. I come forward with this now, hoping that others who have noticed similar alarming phenomena will speak up. I don't know what, if anything, can be done, but I do know that we can no longer remain silent.
Published on May 16, 2012 02:31
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