Full Length Mirror

My wife has just suggested that we visit our youngest daughter again this coming weekend. The reason: apparently she doesn’t have a full-length mirror in her new student accommodation and we need to take her ours.

If we do it will be the seventh time in as many weeks that we have made the trip to York. This, to my mind, seems a little excessive.

It is a little odd to me that such a fuss should be made over a piece of reflective glass but the girls in our family all share a certain attraction to such.

When they were younger I managed to buy a particularly large mirror for our hallway. It was both tall and wide and became something of a peacemaker in a family at war with each other over hairbrushes, clothes, and toys.

Before the acquisition of this new piece of wall furniture we would regularly see our daughters tussling with each other as to who could see their own reflection before they left for a full day at school.

I tended to think that it wouldn’t be quite the same in a house full of lads but other parents have told me that in today’s visual world boys are feeling a similar pressure to conform.

It was different in my day; as a boy I cant ever remember ever carrying a comb with me. Preferring to take my chances with the world looking like I had been dragged through a hedge backwards. A charge my mother would often level at me.

I can’t remember ever trying to climb through a hedge, let alone doing so backwards, but my parents seemed to think it was one of my chosen hobbies.

I was also accused of trying to find all the muddy puddles in the village and rolling in it; granted I did tend to return home from the park in a sorry state.

Perhaps this is why, to this day, I still aim for the large and deep puddles on the road when driving my car. Most men do it. There is something deeply satisfying about driving through water and risking your engine cutting out part way through.

I need to point out that, however tempting it might be, I resist doing so when there is a pedestrian nearby. Honest!

I think that much of our childhood experience is carried into adult life and absorbed as normal behaviour.

I still do not carry a comb with me and see little point in spending ages looking into a mirror before I leave the house.

Mr s M would say that this shows; she often takes an upward glance towards my hairline and holds back a ‘tut’ at how bad my hair looks.

If she feels in a kindly mood she will retrieve her brush from the mysterious compartments of her handbag and tidy me up. Even she is in a rush then she will ask simply ask whether I have ‘looked in the mirror this morning’.

After this weekend it would mean a trip to York to do so.