Thursday, May 24, 2007

Don't Masquerade With A Girl In Shades -- Oh No

Someone has put a sunglasses hex on me.

It all started about eight years ago. I'd been wearing a crappy pair of sunglasses I'd gotten for free when I signed up for a Discover card on campus my first semester at college. (I was smarter then and never actually used the card they sent me). But I wanted better ones, so right before I began my senior year, I bought a pair at Wal-Mart.

Inexpensive but of fine Wal-Mart quality, they were perfect. They were stylish (but not too stylish, lest they go out of fashion and leave me stuck with stupid looking sunglasses), and they looked great on me.

As I began the semester, the future was bright. I was doing alright, getting good grades (you know the deal). Mid-September, however, something happened. My sunglasses disappeared. I don't know if they fell out of my backpack or I left them somewhere or what, but suddenly, they were gone. I went back to wearing my Discover card sunglasses for a good two years.

One night, I was having dinner at TGIFriday's, when I noticed something under the table. It was a pair of sunglasses. Cheap, certainly, but for some reason, I picked them up.

At some point, the Discover card glasses wore out, and I had to throw them away. (Or I lost them, I can't remember). I might have bought another pair to replace them, but if I did, I lost it too. So I started wearing the TGIFriday's sunglasses. Yeah, it's kind of gross to wear something I found on the floor at TGIFriday's, but they were just sunglasses, and I cleaned them and everything. I kept them in the car and pretty much only wore them when I drove anyway.

But I always wanted a nicer pair. I saw people with their stylish sunglasses that they'd bought brand new and got jealous. I wanted nice sunglasses, too. I looked sometimes, but I couldn't find anything that looked all that great or was of better quality than the TGIFriday's pair.

A month ago, I found them. I was determined to find them, because I was leaving for Hawaii the next day and wanted a better pair than the ones I'd found on the floor. It took a good long time to find them on the walls of sunglasses at Target, but I found them. They looked good, they went far enough back on my face that no sun would sneak in the side. They were perfect. So I bought them.

I was nervous; I hadn't had good luck with purchased sunglasses. But I managed to get through my trip without losing my perfect new shades. I rejoiced, believing at last that the curse was broken.

Well, the curse wasn't broken, but my sunglasses now are.

About a week ago, I was putting them in my purse and part of one of the stems broke off. I tried to superglue it, but it didn't work. I wore them for a few days with the broken stem (it was pretty much only the behind-the-ear part that was broken off, and when I had my hair down, you couldn't tell). But then yesterday, I went to put them on and the other stem broke off. Almost the entire thing. I had no choice but to throw them away and go back to the TGIFriday's pair.

I've got to break the curse. I've got to be free to wear nice sunglasses and not ones I got for free, either by bribery or eating at sit-down fast-food restaurants. So here's my plan.

I'm going to buy a new pair, a good pair, another perfect, perfect pair. Then I'm going to throw them on the ground in the parking lot of the store and walk away for five minutes. If they're there when I return, they're mine for good, or at least a reasonable amount of time that is more than a month.

If they're not, well...I guess it's back to TGIFriday's, unless Discover card has something better to offer.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

...except that as soon as you drop your new, perfect glasses in the parking lot and walk away, someone is certainly going to run over them.