This morning on the news there was a report on clothing retailers using “Skinny Mirrors” in their dressing rooms. The mirrors are designed to make you look taller and thinner and this made people buy more clothes. It reminded me of a mirror we had in a house we bought in 1985. When we bought the house there was a cheap full length mirror mounted in the hallway. Every time you entered the hall you would see yourself in this mirror. Back then I was actually taller, by one half inch, and thinner, by about, well many pounds. The thing that bothered me about the mirror was that it made me look shorter and wider. It bugged the heck out of me, because who wants to look shorter and wider. The thing that I soon discovered was that it was the only mirror that made me look that way. This made me realize that the mirror was distorting my near perfect image.
Many of you have seen the mirrors in carnivals that make you look distorted. This is accomplished by simply twisting, bending or bowing the mirrors when they are being made. What I discovered was that the mirror in the hall was had been slightly bowed when it had been mounted it to the wall. There were two mirror mounting clips at the top, two in the middle on both sides and two at the bottom of the mirror, holding the mirror to the wall. What had happened was that whoever mounted the mirror had tightened the two top and two bottom clips too tight making the center of the mirror bow out slightly. This distortion made the image look shorter and wider. When I discovered the reason for the distortion I simply loosened the top and bottom clips and the mirror gave a normal reflection. However, I didn’t stop there. I discovered that if I loosened the top and bottom clips a little more and shimmed the top and bottom out ever so slightly with some folded cereal box card board I looked taller and thinner. And who doesn’t want to look taller and thinner? I left the cardboard in place and after that I enjoyed a more taller and thinner me.
Anyway…for what it’s worth.