I’m talking specifically about those 3-way ones. Who thought it was a good idea to install them in every dressing room in Bloomingdale’s? I guarantee you it was not a woman over fifty.

Let’s be honest. The only people who LIKE looking at themselves in a 3-way are those who have flawless bodies and those who have learned to embrace their flaws. These two groups together equal maybe .01% of the population. That leaves the other 99.99% of us reluctant to shop at Bloomingdales.

On a recent trip to the store, I tried on a dress that, in Mirror 1 (head-on) looked fabulous. I was imagining wearing it to great effect on some red carpet when I made the mistake of adjusting Mirrors 2 and 3 for a look at the rear. I rarely get such an accurate view, so I was startled to notice that some shape-shifting had taken place behind my back. (Not in a good way.)

“It’s not your ass, it’s the dress,” I told myself. I unzipped and stepped out of the frock, handling it with some hostility. I was careful to avoid further self-examination before slipping into my jeans. Once dressed, I couldn’t help looking again.

“It’s not your ass, it’s the jeans,” I said, and got the hell out of Bloomingdales.

If I were in charge of customer relations at that store, I’d remove two mirrors and install shadowy lighting in all dressing rooms. I’m pretty sure their sales would triple. If that approach was cost-prohibitive, I’d at least have the decency to post signage saying, “It’s not your ass, it’s our clothing.”

Meanwhile, I’m going shopping where I can completely avoid the trauma of a 360º self-inspecition: online.

(Illustration by Lindsay duPont)

In my usual reaction to sudden interruption I said, “What the f___?” I slipped into the damp, chemical-smelly flats and went to the door.

I opened the door warily because sometimes that action has resulted in unwelcome surprises. I once found myself facing a man with arms tattooed from shoulder to wrist, like indigo sleeves, and a body odor like that stuff I use to kill spiders. He explained that the pimped-up truck he’d parked in my driveway was full of his “company’s surplus” steaks, which he was willing to sell to me at a discount, In a fit of bad judgement, I paid the guy $80 in exchange for a dozen pieces of frozen meat.

I still can’t explain why my I made a purchase that was so stupid on many levels. There were so many red flags it was like a Chinese parade, and yet, there I was with an armload of T-bones.

Later, seized with remorse, I threw out all the steaks but one, which I left in the freezer as a reminder-to-self not to buy food for your family from every hopped up blue man who Nascars into your driveway.

Anyway, this time it was Jane.

“I was right up on Mulholland for lunch—do you know Lily Bolotin? I thought I’d…but…is it a bad time…?

I really like Jane—we bonded when we both dropped out of a yoga pregnancy class in the last century—but I’m not gifted at spontaneity. Jane may have noticed that my eyebrows were not in the “So glad you’re here!” position.

Also, I’m afflicted with the need to be an impressive hostess. When somebody shows up, you’d like to offer home made shortbread or angel food cake and a lovely tea, all Downton Abbey-ish. But, caught off guard, you’re likely to have nothing but Triscuits and Gatorade, which makes you feel like a loser, rather than like Maggie Smith.

Of course, if you were a rational person, you’d understand that Jane would be perfectly happy with Triscuits, but you’re not (or you’d never have given money to Mr. Psycho-Steak.)

“Perdon, donde esta el bano de mujeres?” rosetta chirped from my iPhone .

“Bienvenidos a mi casa!” I said, switching off the phone and hugging Jane while mentally searching my cupboards for hostessy snack options.

Then I remembered about he previous week’s Unnecessary Cooking. U.C. is what you do when you have a couple days free of regular cooking, i.e. dinners or lunches, so you have the energy to prepare something to store for future use. I had made and frozen some cheese biscuit dough for exactly the kind of occasion that was occurring.

I pulled a little log of it from the freezer, noticing that it was snuggled up against the remaining ill-gotten steak. Within 20 minutes we had warm biscuits (and a little sherry) and I felt almost like Maggie Smith. (Although she would not be caught dead in the act of shoe-stretching.)

Jane left, and in a warm glow of sherry and friendship I took that steak out of the freezer. Later, in U.C. mode, I cooked and fed it to Oliver, careful to taste it myself first as a poison check. It wasn’t half bad.

(In the unlikely event you have time for some U.C., click here for the recipe for the Cheddar Pecan Biscuits.)

When he comes home at day’s end, I consider it share time. The way I figure it, it’s his house too. It would be unfair to withhold updates on the dog’s digestive complaints or the cable guy’s indifference.

When I show and tell, I have always believed that I have most if not all of Tom’s attention. This is because while he listens to me, he limits himself to one additional activity, such as watching ESPN—he keeps the volume respectfully low—or texting. For a champion multi-tasker, this restraint is impressive.

But when I told my friend Nancy about this she said, “Honey, he’s not listening. He’s faux-listening.”

Nancy went on to tell me that her husband Bob had what was, for a time, a foolproof system for appearing to be listening when he actually wasn’t. When, during a key NBA game, his wife would begin her litany of the day’s domestic events, Bob would pay just enough attention to pick up key words like “Radio Shack” or “groceries” and then skillfully punctuate her rant with a sympathetic, “Did you speak to the store manager?”

This strategy worked for a while, but Bob’s wife is no fool. Inevitably, she caught on.

One evening, after describing the demise of their dishwasher she added, “And I screwed the stock boy at Best Buy.,” Bob picked up the last two words of that sentence and, alerted to a cue, looked up from the Lakers Game and said, as usual, “Did you talk to the store manager?”

While this response to Nancy’s statement may have been oddly appropriate in content, it lacked the proper emotional tone.

Bob was so busted.

This story came to mind the other day when I began telling my husband about my run-in with a sales clerk at Brookstone. Tom was tapping on his Blackberry, never the best time to launch a conversation, but I was bursting with my story.

“So the guy tells me that a pillow is a ‘personal item’ so it can’t be returned once it’s opened. So I said that only when you open it do you know that the pillow smells like swamp gas. Who can sleep on that? He goes, “The smell will dissipate in time.” Can you believe he…”

At this point Tom looked up and said, “How do you spell ‘orchestra’?”

This led me to an “Aha!” moment: Tom was not faux-listening. He was just plain not listening.

What ensued was a lively discussion about the virtues of daily conversation, which ended peacefully, with the kind of promises that you know will have to be revisited during the NBA finals.

Anyway, domestic goddesses, beware the signs of faux-listineing and conduct regular tests, as Nancy did. (And if you end up with a smelly pillow at Brookstone’s, do what I did: talk to the store manager.)