Sunglasses on a Hot Spring Day: A Tale of Tinted Folly

A long time ago, in a galaxy that vaguely resembled beautiful Greece, NY, a tale of tinted folly unfolded on a hot spring day. Who starred in this epic adventure? Me and a friend I’ll call Hugh. Since I’ve never had a friend by that name, no one with the actual name of Hugh will be harmed. I hope.

Anyway, we were twenty-somethings with nothing to do but plenty of big dreams. Hugh’s dream was to solve world hunger while circumnavigating the globe on a homemade hang glider built from construction waste he assembled from his job as a day laborer. I was less ambitious. Being independently wealthy and attractive enough to not warrant the attention of all the girls I was definitely not interested in would have been sufficient.

Neither of our dreams came true.

But on that particular day, the most grandiose plan on the agenda was finding Hugh a decent pair of sunglasses. Hugh wanted to take a trip to the mall which, for you younger readers, is like a huge Amazon warehouse parked in the middle of suburbia but with much higher prices and a propensity to attract teenage girls with the IQ of a wet sock.

It Started Out as Expected

I warned Hugh to stay away from the brain — and wallet — sucking black hole that was the mall, but he refused to listen. So off we went; Hugh thinking this was going to be the best day ever and me praying we survived a day of hearing teenagers chatter and say ‘like’ a bajillion times per hour.

Our adventure started out just as expected. We entered the mall with all the chutzpah of Mel Gibson’s Braveheart. Within the first 100 yards of our inter-mall stroll, it happened. The glare of fluorescent mall lighting reflecting off a pair of cheap mirrored aviators hit Hugh’s eyeballs. He was down for the count. The small part of him that could still tell the time of day reached for his wallet like a crazed Bette Midler lining up her next plastic surgery.

I had to intervene. I couldn’t let Hugh spend the equivalent of a week’s pay on a pair of shades that may not survive their first trip to the public toilet at the local amusement park. Fortunately, I managed to talk him off the budgetary ledge. Hugh regained his composure, and an upright position at the same time, allowing us to resume our stroll through the gauntlet.

You’re Not Elton John

Confident I had set Hugh straight about not exceeding his barely-above-minimum-wage spending limit, I began prepping for what I knew would be the next challenge in the Jedi Eyewear Trials: Hugh making a fatal fashion mistake.

“Hugh! You’re not Elton John! You couldn’t pull off those oversized yellow wayfarers with pink and taupe glitter even if you were flying 1,000 feet in the air on the piece of hang gliding garbage sitting in your garage at this very moment. Put the sunglasses down and slowly walk away…”

Remember those aluminum tear-drops that were so fly in the ’80s? Or how about the bug-eyed tortoiseshell shades people would have killed for in the ’90s.? Yeah. Neither do I. But I do remember the number one rule of eyewear fashion: whatever (insert your favorite rock star, actor, or skinny waif-like model here) is wearing, don’t. Just don’t

Hugh could never remember that rule, which is why he had more clothes and accessories than Liberace and Sir Elton, combined! All of that notwithstanding which, by the way, sounds like the perfect title for Donald Trump’s eventual memoirs, me and Hugh were able to dodge another bullet.

It’s Just a Name, Hugh

We faced one final challenge I was unsure that even I could overcome: the battle of the brands. You see, I knew that when we reached the far end of the long mall corridor from hell, a designer sunglasses kiosk would be waiting to pounce. It had all the high-end names. It also had price tags that made Monaco’s GDP look like petty cash. But we couldn’t turn and run. We had to face it head on.

Friends, life was a lot less expensive in the ’80s. But some of the shades we saw on that fateful day cost more than I paid for rent and utilities. When Hugh caught a glimpse of his favorite designer brand — we’ll call it Pucci so as to not give any particular company a bad name — he just about lost his mind. Our previous discussion about his budget might just as well have been about chemtrails in the skies over Poland. At that moment, it was completely unrelated to anything coursing its way through Hugh’s brain.

Sadly, neither Hugh nor I graduated to Master that day. He failed the challenge because he walked away with a pair of ugly, over-priced sunglasses that would have made Karl Lagerfeld proud. I failed the challenge because that’s what I do.

And so our day at the mall ended as pathetically as it started. The only saving grace is that the intensity of it all distracted me. I never heard a word of that nails-on-the-blackboard teen girl chatter I was expecting. I guess that old cliche about silver linings really is true.