Returns Desk
A: Welcome to Hegemon’s Department Store, your one stop shop for all your manufactured desires. This is the returns desk. How may I make your day more enjoyable, sir?
B: You could start by calling me ma’am, for one thing.
A: Oh, I sincerely apologize for that, ma’am.
B: You’re not allowed to accept tips, are you?
A: No si — I mean, ma’am.
B: Lucky for you. Anyway, I’d like to return this mirror.
A: Is it not to your liking?
B: No, it’s horrible. I can’t stand the face it shows me every morning when I go deep throat my toothbrush and gargle some mouthwash.
A: Cracked, is it? Broken?
B: No, no, no. The glass is just fine. But when I look in the mirror all I see is a middle aged man who’s starting to get fat and bald and when I look in his eyes I see nothing but dull disappointment and saggy jowls and probably his cock doesn’t work right because he’s been packing away too many Quarter Pounders for years, and he’s promised himself the whole time he’ll get back in shape just as soon as he can catch a break because you know he really loved running track and playing football back in high school up until he got the knee injury — which he knows he shouldn’t let a knee injury ruin his life but hell life’s hard and at least it’s an excuse — but work is so stressful and he’s got a quota to meet and when he gets back home there’s the kids and the wife to worry about and in the immediacy of the moment all he wants to do is watch some TV and forget about what a disappointment he is to himself even though fleeing that disappointment by forgetting about it is what brings on the disappointment and reinforces it in a vicious cycle but by God is it such a crime to eat a God damn cheeseburger I mean haven’t I earned it because you see he uses it as a sort of compensatory mechanism where he uses his misery as a pretext to console himself with little comforts that in the long term have second- and third-order effects that only deepen the misery so the real problem in a perverse way is that if he was ever NOT a disappointment to himself he’d be denied all the little pleasures he uses to console himself for being such a disappointment so what’s the point of getting back in shape and anyway even if his cock worked right it wouldn’t matter because he’s not attracted to his wife anymore and she’s not attracted to him anymore and God only knows which came first in that chicken/egg situation or which one resents the other more although if it ever did come to a divorce she’d probably initiate it because that’s just how the numbers go but at this point it’s more likely she’ll stick around to drive him to an early grave and he’ll stick around because he just wants to finally die or at least hit a reset button that sends him back to whatever moment he screwed up bad enough to set himself on track for this shit stain of an existence…
A: And you see all that in the mirror…?
B: Every. Single. Morning.
A: Well, I can see why you’d want a different one… so you’re saying you want a mirror that’ll show you something different when you wake up?
B: Correct.
A: You’ve come to the right place! With the right new mirror we can make sure you see yourself exactly the way you choose to be. Just say the word and we’ll find the right mirror for you!
B: Oh, thank God. All right. I know it might sound funny, but I really want a mirror that lets me be a pretty little blonde cheerleader in high school who’s obsessed with seducing her English teacher…