John Y’s Musings from the Middle: Sunglasses

Some things just aren’t meant to be.

Today, after 5 centuries of avoiding ever, ever spending more than about $7 on a pair of sunglasses from the drug store, I relented. My wife, son and daughter each donned sun glasses this morning and I felt left out.

Later this afternoon I snuck off to the Sunglasses Hut (or something like that) and after trying on about 25 different pairs of sunglasses (that cost over $7), I broke done and purchased the basic non-polorized (sp??) Ray Bans (the cheapest pair of Ray Bans they had). I had asked for something “basic” and “kinda classic” ….and something “that wouldn’t stand out on a person who doesn’t wear sun glasses and never has.”

As I walked out with the sun glasses on I could hear the customer behind me comment surprisingly to the sales clerk, “He bought those?” That was the first sign.

Before leaving the parking lot I texted my wife a picture of me and my new sunglasses before excitedly driving home to “join” the family with my new sunglasses status. My wife texted, “Hilarious!” And then my daughter texted, “LOL!” And my wife reported my son was laughing so hard that he was about to injure himself. Apparently, my sun glasses shot had gone viral within the family.

I explained that “‘Hilarious’ wasn’t what I was going for.” Adding that the “Sales clerk had told me they looked good on me.”

There’s more but before I was able to hang with the fam as the fourth sunglass-wearing member, it was clear that wasn’t going to happen. And that I had just paid a little over a $100 for a pair of sunglasses that may be worn on my head but never dropped to my eyes to be worn correctly. I even tried the Tom Cruise Risky Business low sunglasses looking out over them. That was a fail too.

I should instead have bought 6 pairs of new dark socks, a new belt, a new sweat suit and two new pairs of $7 sunglasses from CVS. One for my head and one for my eyes. The latter only to be worn in extreme circumstances when absolutely necessary to protect my eyes against imminent danger (or when recovering from the glaucoma eye test) and no one else is around to see me.