Mama Told Me Not To Come

Three Dog Night was a great band! I used to have a nice collection of 45s that I just about wore out. Late Saturday nights and Sunday afternoons, channel 17 used to air a show called Now Explosion. The MTV of the 70s, if you will. Kaleidoscope-like scenes (often in black and white) would gyrate across the tv screen, or perhaps a still shot of a bunch of hippies with a VW van... whatever seemed to fit the song playing at the time. My friends and I would gather around the monophonic (is that a word?)tv with our portable tape recorders and make cassette tapes of our favorite songs. Then we'd drag those recorders everywhere... even though they were about the size of a shoe box and weighed about 40 lb. (Well, maybe not that much....) I remember being in the car with my mom one Saturday after our weekly trip "to town", and listening to the a.m. radio. I told her that when we got home I was going to call the station and request they play "Joy To The World". She looked at me like I had lost my marbles and reminded me that was the middle of the summer. What a silly mom! She just wasn't "hip" and "with it" enough to know that "Joy To The World" was a super mega hit song by Three Dog Night. Another of my favorite TDN songs was called "Mama Told Me Not To Come". It was a song about a guy who goes to a wild party, and his reaction to the experience. One line goes "I've seen so many things I ain't NEVER seen before.... don't know what it is, but I don't wanna see it no more."

Which brings me to the reason for this post. As I was making my dash through Wal Mart yesterday, I saw a little mirror. It was a super-powerful 15x magnification mirror. It looked like a handy little thing to have, so I tossed it into my buggy, brought it home and looked into it. Now, if you've never looked into one of these mirrors, let me just say.... DON'T. You have to get it really, really close in order to focus. I was apalled at what I saw. I have witnessed a new level of gross. My wrinkles have wrinkles. The pores on my nose could serve as a topographical map of the moon. Seriously. If an entire Whoville full of Whos can exist on a single particle of dust, then I shudder to think what manner of life form inhabits these craters on my face. I've never worried about waxing my eyebrows, because I only had a few rogue hairs out of place, and I'd just tweeze those out every few months. Oh no. I discovered that I was in serious need of a bush-hog. Why didn't anyone tell me that I had a unibrow? My poor lips are so old and cracked that I'm almost afraid to smile now after seeing them close up. Yes, indeed, it was a scary sight. The only good thing about this mirror is that my mostly-undetectable eyelashes appeared long and beautiful in the reflection. I'm seriously considering risking 7 more years of bad luck and crushing the mirror with a sledgehammer. I suppose now I must return to the store and purchase some magic skin potion to restore youth and vitality to my skin. I'm kinda like that guy at the party: "I've seen so many things (on my face) I ain't never seen before... I don't know what it is, but I don't wanna see it no more!!!!!!!"