It Happened To Me: I Tried To Fight A Mirror

I'm gonna tell this story again, because it's the dumbest thing that's ever happened to me, and no one at Gawker Media believes that anyone could be so stupid. But I was. Again, this will be very difficult to explain, because it requires LAYERS of idiocy on the part of the protagonist (that would be me), but I swear it happened. Here goes.

I was in my early twenties, and some girl I was dating took me to a department store so she could do some shopping. I was left to awkwardly peruse the merchandise and pray for a future in which mobile phones with internet screens would one day be invented. I was in some outerwear section—where all the jackets are packed tightly onto the racks and there isn't much space between them—and I was looking down, because I was kinda antisocial at the time.

Well, at one point, as I was walking, I was confronted with a pair of feet, shaded heavily by the coats hanging just above. I tried to move left, and the guy went the same way. I tried to go right, and the guy went with me again. So I moved left and then right and then left and then right again. He matched every step.

Fuck it, I thought. If we're gonna bump into each other, we may as well get it over with. So I walked directly into the man facing me.

It was a mirror.

It was one of those full-length mirrors they have affixed to pillars all around any department store. I had confronted, and then plowed directly into, myself.

Now, the Deadspin staff had questions for me when I brought this story up. I will answer some of their questions below, in an effort to elucidate any questions that YOU also might have.

Q: Wait, what?

A: I confronted a man who turned out to be me in a mirror.

Q: You head-butted yourself?

A: Kinda, yeah. I bumped into the mirror, and then fled the scene in embarrassment.

Q: Did you say anything to yourself?

A: No, I just kinda grunted.

Q: HOW OLD WERE YOU?

A: Again, my early twenties.

Q: How many other inappropriately aggressive strangers have you plowed right into?

A: Zero.

Q: Did the mirror break?

A: No.

Q: Is that your move? To just plow into people?

A: Not normally, no.

Q: Imagine if this happened today and there was surveillance footage of it. It would be the greatest blog post in history.

A: Yes, I am glad that footage does not exist!

Q: I can't believe it needs to be asked, but exactly how did you not recognize yourself?

A: I was looking down. Very down, apparently.

Q: Wait, so you saw what you thought was a man hiding behind the coats, and you jumped him?

A: No, no! I'm not crazy like that.

Q: Can you draw a diagram?

A: See above.

Q: Trying to fight yourself in a mirror is only a step or two away from arguing on Twitter, probably.

A: Yes, probably.

And now, you get to tell us the dumbest sober moment of your lifetime. Nothing else I have done, obviously, tops what you see above. I will also embed our entire discussion of this event from the Deadspin chat room down below, for posterity. Anyway, look out for mirrors, man. They will ruin you.