Mirror, mirror...

Have you ever looked in a mirror and just been kind of, well, surprised? You know, you see something in your self you never noticed before -- a tiny mole on your neck, the odd way your lips touch when you smile, the discoloration of your own teeth.

Well, today I looked in the mirror in the bathroom after waking up and I noticed for the first time that my entire head is a shovel. Yeah, like metal. Some dried up dirt on the top, wooden handle extending into my neck. I swear to God I never saw that before. No seriously. I guess I've always been so self-conscious I just didn't ever really look at myself. But this morning I was real focused...really paid attention. And that's what I saw. A shovel. This is a crazy world!

So then I looked at my arms in the mirror (you can look at your arms without a mirror, of course, but when you look at them in a mirror you REALLY see em). So anyway, I looked at my arms in the mirror, and it turns out they're not arms at all -- they're chemicals. Like part of right arm is sodium nitrate. My left wrist is bicarbonated vermelditide. Both my elbows are anthrax. No, don't look at me like that! I swear I never noticed it before. Crazy world, right?

And there I was: a shovel head, chemical arms. I knew there was more to this unfolding mystery, so I looked at my testicles in the mirror. Just put em right up. And what stared back at me? Testicles. My testicles are real! Not chemical, not gardening tools. I jumped up and down joyously, knowing my most important assets -- the pieces of me that'll pass my essence on to another generation -- were exactly as I'd always seen them.

But in my wild celebration the chemicals that create my arms began reacting viciously. The room was filled with explosions and poison fumes. And somehow, in all the madness, my shovel head became dislodged. It rattled from side to side, and when a particularly jarring explosion sent me scurring into the shower for shelter, my shovel head came came clear off my shoulders and landed in my crotch. My testicles were severed immediately.

"NOOOOOOOO!" I cried. "Anything but that!" But the truth was undeniable. When the chemical dust finally cleared I put my midsection up to the mirror. And there, where my testicles used to be, was the entire country of El Salvador.

A crazy world, I say. A crazy world indeed.