Mirror, Mirror

While I was biding my time in the optometrist's chair, I let my peepers roam about the exam room. Straight ahead, mounted side-by-side on the wall, were two square mirrors. I know they are used to reflect the vision chart once the lights go down. But during down time, they are simply mirrors. As such, they reminded me that I am not the fairest one of all. In fact, they reminded me that I really needed to touch up my roots. Cheeky mirrors.

It's not that I was rockin' the skunk look. Than unfortunate coiffure faux pas sometimes befalls those of us who inherited our dad's dark brown locks rather than our mother's red tresses. Especially those of us with grandparents known for their flowing white manes during their septuagenarian decade, the foundation for such having been laid down in their twenties. It's true. I come from an early-graying lineage. Not a problem. After the first thirty or forty inquisitive adolescents kindly graced me with the observation, "Hey! You have gray hair!" I decided to remedy the situation. And never looked back. I even find it entertaining when the students ask, "Did you dye your hair?" Because they think I am just doing it for a darker shade. That's what they do, you know. Nobody ever insinuates that it's to cover gray. I would like to think that they are uber-compassionate and do so to spare my feelings. But all signs point more towards inattentive oblivion.

Recessed in the ceiling in front of the mirrors was a row of lights. I'm not sure why they were positioned so. The doc always dims them for the exam, and  uses a hand-held torch to peer into my soul. I don't know the exact number of foot-candles emitted by the ceiling, but the ambience was much like a community theater stage. I briefly considered putting on my own private show. A dance routine, perhaps. A chorus line of one.

I could have presented, for my two-mirror audience's pleasure, that dancing frog routine: "Hello, my honey! Hello, my baby! Hello, my ragtime doll!" But since I was lacking a cane and top hat, a simple kick-ball-change beginning tap routine would have had to suffice. I'm not a natural dancer. That must come as quite a surprise to you. Some might think my hoofing more akin to that of Rhoda in The Bad Seed, with her Claude-Daigle-bashing metal taps, than that of Ann Miller. Far be it from me to try and sway the tide of public opinion.

Alas, my Chorus Line audition was rain-checked for another day. The doctor chose that moment to enter and get down to business. I think he saved me from a fate worse that being caught out of the chair, jotting down blog ideas in a tiny spiral notebook.