Farzad Through The Looking Glass

The adventures and misadventures that kids get themselves into have always intrigued me. I remember a time, not that long ago, that I got into a little trouble myself. In 1994, my uncle got married. My parents, grandparents, brothers and I all traveled (by car) to Canada for the wedding. I come from a Persian family and as we all know, Persians like rugs. So, the following is a little story I like to call “Farzad Through the Looking Glass”. 

I am very vain……or at least that is what my mom tells me.  My mother is always calling me Adonis because she thinks I am too concerned with my looks. She always sings the Carly Simon song "You're So Vain" to me. I disagree with her. I believe I pose a very valid point when I say that “Looks = Success” If you don’t look the part, you’ll never get the part. As a result of my mission for success, I do look in the mirror very often to make sure that I look good. Sometimes though, I just don’t look close enough. 

I’d have to say that my self-preservation efforts started at a young age. I always wanted to make sure that my clothes matched, that my hair look better than everyone else’s and that my sneakers were cooler than all the other guys. I was always voted “Best Dressed” and “Most Stylish”. My clothes were even featured on the fashion page of my high school senior yearbook. This involved many, many minutes in front of the mirror every day. It all started around 2nd or 3rd grade when my “puppy love” phase developed. I attended a private school and they always let the 4th and 5th graders attend the junior high dances. Looking forward to this very much, in 3rd grade I was already thinking of who I would invite to the dance. I decided then and there to start caring for myself and the way I looked. If I ever wanted a girlfriend I’d have to look good for her. The Fonz always looked good and look at how many ladies he got. My theory worked and I have had a date for every dance since the 4th grade.  

In 1994, my Uncle Reza got married in Canada. For this special occasion, my family and I took a three day road trip from El Paso to Toronto to attend the wedding. When we finally arrived, my brothers and I were completely fed up with each other. Needless to say, for the rest of the trip we went our separate ways. I avoided them as much as I could. One day while we were there, my father, being the devout Persian culture enthusiast that he is, decided that we were going to go Persian rug shopping. How fun! Taking a 9 year old to see smelly ugly rugs! It wasn’t really as bad as I thought it would be. A snowball fight would have been much more appealing but July in Canada does not allow for much snow. The entire family went to see these famous Persian rugs. All out parents told us was to behave and stay in one place because it was a big store and they didn’t want us to get lost. There were about 8 kids with us and all we did was jump form pile of Persian rugs to pile of Persian rugs. We were having so much fun, figuring out who could jump the farthest, who could jump the fastest and who could win the races from one end of a row to the other end. I decided to challenge one of my brothers in a race down a row of piles. I was already anticipating my victory. Jump. Jump. Jump. Three down, four to go. I was winning by one pile. Jump. Jump. Jump. I turned to see how far along my brother has come. We were neck and neck! JUU...CRAASH!!! On my last jump, I ran into a mirror. I should have seen myself, considering that I had so much experience looking at myself in the mirror. Luckily, the mirror didn’t break but I felt like my nose did. I even broke my glasses. Blood was running down my face, dripping onto my shirt. This was SO embarrassing! I can’t believe I ran into a mirror! How much more ironic can life be? The person who is always checking himself out in the mirror crashes into one because he didn’t see his own reflection. 

I remember thinking that there must have been more piles of Persian rugs ahead, because that was what I saw. I simply didn’t notice that I was already on a pile of those rugs. The wedding was the next day and even though the wedding wasn’t about me, I didn’t want to go because of the way my face looked. I looked as if I ran into a wall at 80 miles per hour. My parents forced me to go, mostly because I wasn’t old enough to stay in a hotel room by myself. I decided to not tell anyone at the wedding that the wall I ran into was a mirrored wall. I was attached to my brother the whole time because I didn’t want to be the loser in the corner with a bruised and broken face. Of course people asked repeatedly, “What happened to your face?” I told them I ran into a wall. I felt this excuse was embarrassing enough and didn’t invite many more questions. On the other hand, my brother felt I should tell the WHOLE truth. I felt otherwise. When the next investigator came along to find out what happened to my face, my brother gave them the exclusive Barbara Walters 20/20 interview. He held nothing back and explained, in detail, exactly how I ran into a mirror. Everyone’s reaction to his response was drastically different than when they heard my response. Countless questions followed. “Didn’t you see yourself?”, “Don’t you wear glasses? Do they work?”, “Are you retarded?” (yes, they actually asked this.)

 This was even more embarrassing than running into the actual mirror. Now I was running into the reflection of my stupidity. This experience made me learn to take a good, hard look in front of me before walking into any scene that looks strangely familiar. I also learned that mirrors can be a bad thing…..but only if you jump into them face first.