Sometimes in life you have questions that need answers. Sometimes the world promises to give you those answers. Sometimes those promises are lies. One time when I was a little boy, home from school on summer vacation, I found myself watching daytime television, and an advertisement promised to answer one of my most profound questions. All I had to do was tune into the next show. The host asked, “Have you ever woken up, looked in the mirror, and cried?”
Yes! Yes, I had! I’d done that lot’s of times. You see, I had eye boogers when I was kid. And not just the standard eye boogers in the corner of your eyes that you can pick out with no problem. I had full eyelid sealing boogers. I’d wake up with my eyelids practically sewn shut with boogers. My mom had given me some eye drops to help me get them open in the morning, but it also took a few tears to get my eyes fully open. This advertisement described my morning routine to a T. I’d wake up not able to open my eyes, so I’d stumble into the bathroom and, while looking in the mirror, I’d use eye drops and tears to get them open. As far as I could tell, the next show was promising to tell me how to solve the eye boogers problem. I’d never been more excited to watch a daytime television program in my life!
I was quickly disappointed. It was a show targeted at women and I was bored through most of it. Then they said it, the sound bite from the commercial was in the actual show… “have you ever woken up, looked in the mirror, and cried?” Yes. “Have you looked at your hair and it was such a disaster…” Um, I guess my hair was a disaster. “… that you couldn’t stand to look at yourself.” No! That wasn’t my issue. I mean my hair was bad in the morning, but that’s not what was making me cry. What about the eye boogers? The show promised to help me solve the eye boogers issue…
Eventually the eye booger problem went away. Maybe because of the eye drops my mom gave me. I dunno. I did learn two important lessons. Firstly, that not all questions have answers, and not all problems have solutions. Secondly, I learned that women have issues when they look at themselves in the mirror. I later heard someone say that when women look at themselves in the mirror they notice what they don’t like about themselves, and when men look in the mirror they notice what they like about themselves. I don’t really know if that’s true or not, but I do know that when I look in the mirror, I’m glad I don’t have a terrible case of eye boogers anymore.