The Mirror has a couple of faces, I guess.

Something kind of weird happened yesterday, and I’m not sure what to make of it.

I saw my reflection.

It’s not like I’m a vampire (FYI: they don’t exist.); We can see ourselves in mirrors, but the result is really physically painful. Something about the reflection causes our ears emit this high-pitched feedback type sound and it echoes inside our heads for hours. My fourth best friend in 3rd grade, Ryan, almost died from looking at a mirror. His ears bled and he was out of school for about a month (or it could have been a week. Time doesn’t mean much when you’re 8.)

Again, I think it’s one of those evolutionary things. They could have chosen a better time than eighth grade to tell us about it, though. You remember that? You guys went into one room and we went into another…I don’t know what they taught you, but they showed us all these really gruesome filmstrips about mirror safety, avoiding metal spoons, blah, blah, blah.

The basic evolutionary gist is that in order to preserve the species, we developed the Mirror Shriek (the clinical term is Speculum Terroris). I guess after seeing our own reflections, we hurled ourselves into the nearest body of water out of despair. Nature is so weird.

I haven’t seen what I look like pretty much ever. Even in pictures. The shriek is a little duller, but still unpleasant. When I got my new job, they had to make a special exception and let me draw a picture of myself for my company ID. Maybe I’ll post it later.

So, yesterday we were having a whole office meeting up on the 29th floor. I don’t take the elevator; the whole damn thing is paneled with mirrors. Can you believe it? The WHOLE interior. Humans are beautiful, meaty creatures, no doubt, but is this really necessary? Jeez.

Also, it reeks of bacon. But, like, old bacon.

But, as usual, I was running late and I figured I'd just look at the floor on the way up. I got in the elevator and after one floor it stopped to let someone else on. Yeah. That’s right. It was Kate. Ugh.

She got in the elevator and I was staring down at the floor.

“You going to see Midnight in Paris this weekend?” She asked.

“Maybe, I don’t know. Everyone says I should see it.”

“I might go.” She said.

I didn’t look up, partly because I was afraid of the mirrors and partly because all the looking down at the floor had caused me to drool a great big puddle on the floor.

Then she said, “Oh, that’s weird, we skipped floor 23.”

I jerked my head up. In that split second, I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror. Kate was standing right in front of me - I think she was smiling at me, but I don’t know. And before I knew it, we were on floor 29 and the doors opened. No shrieks, no bleeding ears. No despair (much).

Kate walked to the conference room and I followed. Except I slipped on my puddle of drool, but I don’t think she noticed.