I have a magnifying mirror in my bathroom, not because I’m so vain that I need to apply my makeup in fine detail, but because if I had to rely on the vanity mirror 2′ away, I might as well get ready without any mirror at all; I’m that near-sighted.

Before I got the magnifying one, I used a hand-held mirror that I frequently smudged with a mascara wand because I had to hold it so close to my face to see what I was doing. I still have to get rather close to the magnifying mirror; in fact, I often make accidental fog spots where I exhale. But, once I’m near enough to see it, then – wow! – I can really see up close.

This is how close I normally have to get to see in the magnifying mirror. I think it’s funky how the camera perspective makes the reflection looked warped.

All that is to set the stage for something peculiar that happened the other day. I had stepped away from the mirror to pick up something from the vanity, and I happened to glance back up at it. I was much too far away to see my reflection, but what I did see was my open closet door behind me, with my red bathrobe hanging on the hook inside the door. It was as clear as if I was wearing my glasses, only the image was inverted.

I was still standing there perplexed by the perfectly 20/20 reflection of my upside-down bathrobe when my 13yo walked in and asked what in the world I was doing.

I explained the phenomenon to him, and seeing as his prescription is as bad as mine (if not worse, poor dominant-gene child), he wanted to see if it happened to him, as well. It did! I tried to make sense of it, but I’m baffled. I know that convex and concave mirrors reflect differently (hence, the mirror rooms in carnival fun houses), but I’ve never experienced a reflection that was perfectly adjusted for my near-sightedness.