Three-Way Mirror

We have given up teaching regular classes on a Sunday. Not for religious reasons, but for our sanity. 

Partner has been excited all week at the thought of having the time to try out his new pressure washer. He set it all up this morning and started on the patio. By the time he had finished, our patio was no longer green, but also a proportion of it was no longer there. It’s ever so powerful, he said, as I looked at where bits of our patio used to be and saw them strewn across the garden. 

I thought perhaps I should try to get him away from causing any more damage to our property, as he was muttering something about the conservatory windows needing a clean. I suggested a shopping trip.

I had a voucher to spend in M&S, and ended up in their changing rooms trying on a pair of jeans, not dissimilar to the ones mum bought a few weeks ago, which slightly unnerved me. She’s a glam gran, but I’m not sure I’m quite ready to field that look yet. Within minutes of entering the changing room, my nerves were shattered and my feeling of well being dismembered, by the presence of a three-way mirror. Now, I can see the point of these, but if there is one thing that is going to get you back on that January diet that has lapsed because it’s February, it’s a three-way mirror. When you are half an hour in a changing room, trying on one item of clothing and partner says when you come out, looking dejected and depressed, what’s taken you so long? You just reply: it’s because of the three-way mirror. 

I had actually forgotten how they worked, until I was half undressed and happened to glance to my left, where I was confronted with my buttocks from an angle that I never usually have to endure. Oh my god! I thought to myself. People saw that view in Spain last year! I quickly put on the jeans. I turned to the front full length view. The lighting showed up every crease from face to waist. I saw that my hair needs cutting, my eyebrows need plucking and carrying on down is still work in progress. Why don’t shops install mirrors that slim you down and lights that are kind, not harsh and real. I got dressed with my eyes shut and left. 

Let’s go and have a coffee and cake, partner said, cheerily, sensing that my mood might need lightening. Do I look as if I need cake, I snapped at him. Why not? He continued, chirpily, we’ve got a day off! Why not? I snarled at him, feeling that he just isn’t grasping the severity of the situation. Partner looked confused – I had entered that changing room full of positivity and happiness and he sensed that the mood had decidedly swung the opposite way. Because of the three-way mirror, that’s why not, I retorted, whilst zipping my coat up, as far as it could go.