ラーメンの湯気で、メガネまっしろ… 　 　 　　　∧＿＿∧　 　 　 ﾓﾜｧ 　 （─┏━┓─┏━┓─） 　 （　 ┗━┛　 ┗━┛　 ） 　 　　　（　ζ 　 ζ　） 　 　 （⊃＿＿＿＿＿⊂） 　　　　　＼＿＿＿／ 　 ￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣

The two ζ on line 5 are Greek small zetas, and their wavy strokes are steam. They sit inside parentheses a little narrower than the face, one below each lens, both on the side nearest the bridge. The steam comes from a bowl: on line 6, （⊃＿＿＿＿＿⊂）, the hands ⊃ and ⊂, borrowed from set theory, where they mean “superset of” and “subset of,” hold its rim, five ＿ long, by both ends, and line 7, ＼＿＿＿／, is the body of the bowl tapering toward its base. The face on lines 3 and 4 has no eyes and no mouth, only glasses. The heavy box-drawing characters ┏━┓ on line 3 and ┗━┛ on line 4 make the corners of two square lenses, and the insides are left empty. That blank white is the joke: the lenses have steamed up so completely that nothing shows through. Of the three ─ on line 3, the outer two run out to the edges of the face, （ and ）, as the temples, and the middle one is the bridge. On line 2 sit the ∧＿＿∧ ears, the pointed kind worn by countless little figures on 2channel, the huge Japanese anonymous forum where drawing with text became a craft of its own. In Japan such pictures are still called AA, for ASCII art, even though, apart from its half-width spaces and line breaks, this one doesn’t use a single ASCII character. To the right of the ears, outside the face, ﾓﾜｧ (mowaa) in half-width katakana is the sound of warm, damp air puffing into your face. Line 8 is ten ￣ joined into one line that starts and ends exactly where the face does, with the bowl resting right on it; at a ramen shop, that would be the counter, where many people in Japan eat facing the kitchen. Line 1, ラーメンの湯気で、メガネまっしろ…, means roughly “Ramen steam… and my glasses went totally white.” This small original AA was made for this site, and anyone who wears glasses knows the moment before the first slurp.