Ladies (in the unlikely event there are any reading this blog), is it just me? Do you, too, look better in your mirror at home than you do in mirrors at clothing stores? I swear, I can age 15 years and gain 25 pounds between my bathroom at home, where I put on my makeup and check my general appearance, and the mirror in the clothing shop.
It’s true. When I get dressed in a nice pair of slacks and a pretty top that fits just so, I have no spare tire and my butt looks middle-aged but not too bad when I look over my shoulder. When I finish putting on all the makeup it takes to achieve the natural (!) look, I’m pleased. I don’t look 71, at least from the chin up and if I squint.
Cheerfully I head out to, say, find a new pair of jeans because the ones I wear around the house all the time, my most comfortable ones that I’ve had since Clinton was in office, are so holey they’re almost candidates for sainthood.
Cheerfully, I shop the racks in the Women’s Short sizes (knowing they’ll still be six inches too long), casting wistful glances over at the Junior section because that’s where the cute clothes are. Glumly, I remind myself that at my age nobody gives a shit what I look like and they wouldn’t care if I strolled the store bare-nekkid. OK, the cheerfulness is fading a bit. I perk up when I find a nice pair of Gloria Vanderbilt jeans and a cute top go with them, and I sashay into the dressing room.
But something horrible happens. The instant I cross the dressing room threshold, the transformation comes. No handsome young man unexpectedly finding himself turning into a werewolf when the moon is full could be more stunned by the change.
The more of my own clothes I remove the worse it gets. Oh good lord. There are sags and bags and cellulite and wrinkles and old-lady flab I did not have when I got dressed that morning. As if that isn’t bad enough, the face that looks back at me has too much blush on and the almost colorless eye shadow has become blue and I hate blue eye shadow! The carefully and artfully applied, only hinted-at mascara has become garish black Tammy Fay spikes.
I want to crouch in a fetal position on the floor of the dressing room but if I did the clerk would think I was trying to shoplift something. I close my eyes a second, open them, and find Dorien Gray’s end-of-the-book picture staring back at me.
And to add insult to injury, the damned jeans won’t zip.
But at least I have finally figured out what happens: demons inhabit all mirrors away from home.
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