Friday, February 28, 2014

Why a Magnifying Mirror Is a Huge Mistake

When I was a wee lass, I dreamed of being an astronomer. Then I found out astronomers need to be proficient in math. There went that dream. I still loved learning about the planets and stars, though, and my dad even got an acquaintance of his who worked at NASA to send me some beautiful pictures of Saturn, which I have framed and hung in my office. This is one of them:
Pretty cool, right? Thanks, Dad (and NASA).
You know what else is nice? Those closeup shots of the moon, of dreamy-sounding places like the Sea of Tranquility.
I don't know if the Sea of Tranquility is in this shot, but thanks, NASA, nonetheless!
You know what is NOT nice? Magnifying mirrors. Bear with me a second, because this will all make sense shortly.

You're cruising around through life, thinking you look okay. I mean, sure, you can accept that you're not a supermodel, but overall, not too shabby. In fact, a little like this:
Maybe with a *slightly* shorter neck, but yeah, this looks about right. 
One day, you're at the drugstore buying, oh, I don't know, hemorrhoid cream (BECAUSE YOU READ IT REDUCES EYE PUFFINESS, DAMMIT) and you see one of these:
And looky here! It's the BEST CHOICE OF THE YEAR! 
"Magnifying my face by 10 times? How fantastic!" you think. "I can use it to touch up eye makeup, perform eyebrow maintenance, and examine my freakishly long neck for suspicious moles."

You jam it into your basket, pay for your treasures, and race home, eager to use those suction cups to attach it to your larger mirror. You moisten the suction cups, press the magnifying mirror to the larger mirror, and lean in, eager to begin your examination. The mirror pops off. You re-moisten it, press a little harder, and it slides down about 10 inches. You dry off the suction cups, curse loudly, and smash the mirror onto the larger one AGAIN. You wait 20 seconds. Okay, this time it's holding. You lean in. It falls off.

"G*DDAMMIT!" you shout as you snatch up the miraculously unbroken mirror from the bottom of the sink.

By now you're red-faced and perspiring. But you're going to touch up your eye makeup, by gum! So you take a deep breath and bring the little miracle mirror to you.

"This will work just fine," you murmur, as you check your eye makeup.

Okay, a little smudging at the corners. No problem! You do some touching up and step back to see the effect in the larger mirror. Nice! Looking goooooooooooood.

"Hey," you think -- and here's where things go to hell -- "why don't I take a closer look AT MY ENTIRE FACE?"

Foolishly, you begin navigating the contours of your face with the little mirror and disgusting flaws come into immediate and unwelcome focus. Flaws that are magnified *10 times*. Holy CRAP, what is that hair doing THERE? You snatch up the tweezers for an emergency pluck. OMG, is this eyebrow hair...? YES, it's WHITE! YOU HAVE A WHITE EYEBROW HAIR! You clutch the tweezers in trembling fingers for another emergency pluck. It only gets worse. You will notice you have about 4,983 more zits, age spots, and wrinkles than you thought could even FIT on a human face. Glorious 10X magnification! Your face looks a lot like that closeup of the moon, with the occasional one of these moles thrown in for laughs:

On the bright side, and there's only one positive thing that will come out of this purchase: you can re-do your ruined-from-weeping eye makeup quite nicely now. So there's that.

I can't end this post without a word of warning: do not, under ANY circumstances, use this mirror of horrors to look in your ears or your nose. Such reckless actions will bring you only misery. And you already feel bad enough as it is....

45 comments:

  1. and the pores on your nose and the broken capillaries on the sides of your nose and....? no? That's just me? mmhmm okay.

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    1. Errrr, no. Not just you. Thanks for reminding me. [weeping]

      :)

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  2. Magnifying mirrors are perfect gifts. For the person who is on your 'must receive a gift' list who you really, really don't like much. Family - or family by marriage. And if you could add some tweezers as an additional gift. And a box of tissues...

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    1. EC, that is a fantastic idea! I'm making my Christmas list now...

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  3. Oh, thank you for the warning. You've described, I'm certain, everything I would do and see! Including the sprouting potato moles. Still, it may come in handy for the hemorrhoid cream application (to the 10x magnified puffy eyes...). Yeah, maybe I'll skip it.

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    1. Abby, consider it a public service. If I can save ONE person from the horror I have felt, then exposing my revolting flaws to the world will have been worth it. Yes, I'm that noble.

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  4. OMG, this is so funny! Those potatoes pretty much sum it up, eh? My pet peeve is when I can feel a whisker on my chin and I don't have access to the magnified mirror and I have to wait until I get home to get the tweezers out. And it is just wrong that anyone should have to deal with acne and wrinkles in the same decade never mind the same day.

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    1. Really!! It's outrageous. As if getting old didn't suck enough, we're back to acne? I mean, come on...

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  5. OMG I am laughing my ass off...I would never buy a magnifying mirror, as I thought the title of your post was meant to be redundant ;)

    Saturn has always been my favorite planet to see pictures of, and I had the same experience with astronomy and math. Damn!

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    1. You KNOW I'm going to say URANUS is my favorite, right? Okay, not really (although it is my favorite one to name.) Saturn is mine, too!

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  6. Now THIS is a subject I can relate to! I have very hairy eyebrows (only plural due to plucking) and in the run up to my 40th birthday, I became resigned to the fact that hairs would be sprouting from places that no hair should sprout (ears, nose). Plus I never seem to spot them SPROUTING. They all seem to arrive fully sprouted.

    My hair has long been more SALT than PEPPER but I appreciate that this is yet another sexual double standard. Men become distinguished, women become Miss Haversham.

    I'm sorry - it sucks!

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    1. Steve Domino! I was worried that you had joined ranks with my mom in the "my blog is off-putting" camp! (BTW, how would it be to name a band "OFF PUDDING"?)

      Yes, that sexual double standard (name of a DUO?) is grossly unfair.

      It sucks indeed.

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    2. *how GREAT would it be, I meant. Gah.

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    3. Oh, good! (NOT that I'm an insecure writer who needs constant affirmation or anything...)

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  7. HaaaHAAaaa.
    This reminds me of the day I thought, "WOW, You look GOOD, Kim"
    And then on my way to work, I looked in the car mirror and GASPED))))
    NO. No. What the hell happened?
    Thanks for the giggle. Kiss to Kitties. Xx

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    1. hahaha - that happens more often than I care to think about. Maybe it's because I changed all of the lightbulbs in my bathroom to 20 watts? Nah...must be something wrong with the lighting EVERYWHERE ELSE. :)

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  8. Put the mirror flat on a table. Lean over it. LOOK DOWN into the mirror. I can hear your screams from my house.

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  9. Hysterical! I was laughing just from the title and pictures alone, because I knew just were you were going.

    Your account of getting that little mirror to stick on the bigger one got me going... except I don't dare buy one of those. Over the years, I've problems with the shower clock, caddy, and who knows what else.

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    1. Yeah...those suction cup thingies suck. Hahaha guess you can't have suction without suck. Suc?

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  10. Yeah.... I learned that lesson a few years ago. My handheld mirror is two sided, and my intention is to only use the "real" mirror. But occasionally, I look into the magnified side, and it scares me silly. NO ONE should be subjected to that.

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    1. Why didn't t you warn me?? It was horrible. And yet I was peering into it just last night. Guess I'm a masochist!

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  11. Here is the conundrum: the only thing worse than a magnifying mirror is NO magnifying mirror. Because you don't want to be that old lady with all those hairs sticking out that EVERYONE ON THE PLANET BESIDES YOU (and those even MORE decrepit than you) can see and snicker at, do you? MKB

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    1. True! I've even seen people with hairy chins and wondered WHY they didn't invest in one of these mirrors. Now I kind of understand the desire to not know!

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  12. I feel your pain!!!
    I once made the mistake of buying one of those, then steaming my face over hot water to open the pores. Gah. I looked like a swamp monster. The mirror was chucked out and I'm still recovering from the shock :-(

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    1. Duly noted!! No steaming/examining pores. There should be a support group of some kind...clearly, this type of incident (not you as Swamp Monster, to be clear) has scarred a lot of people!

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  13. I feel like this looking in a normal mirror with my reading glasses on! OMG when did I get so bloody old!!

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    1. It's funny, in a terrifying way...that JUST happened to me. Got done w/ my shower, dressed, etc., thought I looked okay (not fab, but okay), and then I put on my glasses. Must wait to put on glasses when I'm not near a mirror! Snap! (as the kids say, LOL)

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  14. Frankly, this is why I'm not a fan of 1080p hi-def television. There's just something really disconcerting about being able to see an actor's pores up close and personal.

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    1. It's a darn good thing Johnny Depp and Andrew Lincoln are PORE AND BLEMISH FREE.

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  15. Hey Ms. CrankyPants,

    I'm well into astronomy. I even remember when we had nine planets. Hell, I've decided we still do.

    I think that magnifying glass might come in real handy in a particular area. With that, I'm going to magnify Uranus....

    Gary :)

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  16. URANUS and I haven't been the same since they discovered RINGS around URANUS! :)

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  17. THAT is exactly why I only look at myself in the mirrors at the amusement park.
    The photo of the potato cracked me up--excellent example!
    Keep primping.

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    1. I'll keep primping and looking DAMN GOOD (until I check that monstrous magnifying mirror).

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  18. I know the dangers of magnifying mirrors, not pretty....you had me smiling

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    1. All you people knew yet didn't warn me!! Oh, the humanity!

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  19. Dude I have one in my bathroom and I am addicted to how horrible I look!

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