Face-Off
Four plastic surgeons tell me what's wrong with my face.
Dr. Implant leaves, and as his consultant writes up the proposed fee, she says: "If you're going to do anything, do your eyes. When you came in, that's what I noticed. I didn't notice your jaw." Maybe Zorro has a spare mask I can borrow until I take care of this.
Total: $13,508.
Oddly, my consultations left me more content about my baggy, banded, weak-chinned face. I kept imagining myself bagless, unbanded, with a jaw like a proscenium arch, yet looking sadly artificial. It also helps that I have discovered the secret to happy aging—a 25-watt bulb over the bathroom mirror.
In Human Guinea Pig, I'm going to take strange jobs, sample peculiar therapies, pick up odd hobbies, and generally try the activities that my colleagues have always wondered about but don't have the guts to do themselves. (Can you really get rich from Internet get-rich-quick schemes? What happens when you take one of those free-vacation-if-you-look-at-this-Florida-condo vacations?)
If you have an idea for something I ought to do, please e-mail me at guineapig@slate.com.
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Emily Yoffe is a regular Slate contributor. She writes the Dear Prudence and Human Guinea Pig columns. You can send Dear Prudence questions for publication to prudence@slate.com. (Questions may be edited.) Subscribe to Emily Yoffe's Facebook page.
Photograph of Emily Yoffe by David Plotz. Illustration by Robert Neubecker.