Anyone who knows me (all three of you), knows that I am obsessive about wearing my sunglasses anytime I am outside. Sunny, cloudy, sun up, sun down, I have them on. I stop just shy of pulling a Corey Hart and wearing them at night, but I am not far off some days. Aside from how badly the sunlight just plain hurts my eyes, I have been lead to believe that people with blue eyes are more prone to sun-related eye damage and disease (and oh, hey, lookit here, it just may be true!) and I aim to keep my eyesight intact for the duration of my breathing days.
Accepting the truth of my previous statements, one would think that I must invest quite a tidy sum in sunglasses, yes? Well, one would be wrong. For the past ten years, I have been wearing $5.00/pair Giant Tiger sunglasses, and I have purchased four pairs (two identical pairs at a time) over the course of those years. They are durable, claim UVA/UVB protection on the tag, and have nice, dark lenses. Perfect. Or, they were until recently when I realized that the coating on my last surviving pair is bubbling and peeling off. Ugh.
For the past three or so years, I have been debating with myself, thinking that just maybe it is time to buy actual real, quality adult sunglasses. To that end, I regularly check Costco online and this week, when I did, I found these with a cash and carry price in-store of $79.99. Expensive enough to qualify as ‘real adult sunglasses’ but not so expensive as to send me into a full-blown anxiety attack over spending so much money on something I could buy for $5.
As luck would have it, our children continue refusing to give up eating and our rapidly depleting fresh food supply dictated that I was due for a shopping trip to Newmarket, and Costco was on my list of places to hit (5 lbs of organic baby carrots, you say? Yes, please!). So off I went. I pulled into the parking lot, scored a sweet parking spot without having to fist fight a senior citizen for it and wheeled my cart straight over to the optical counter. I found the sunglasses, tried them on, decided that while I liked the frames, I hated the solid grey arms, so I tried the same pair in a slightly different colour and decided it was a go. I anted up my credit card to the tune of $90+ (tax, dontchu know?), I finished the rest of my shopping (baby carrots, 2 lbs of spinach, parmesan cheese, Skinny Pop (on sale!) and headed back to the mama-van.
It was a super bright and sunny day so I decided rather than saving my new sunglasses for another day (which historically is my m.o. with new things), that I was going to wear them right away. I unzipped the clunky hard case they come in, removed them from the plastic bag and cardboard packaging, put them on and, hated them instantly. The arms were SO long, much longer than the ones that I tried on in the store. They sat funny (and no, it wasn’t just my face, I checked in the visor mirror, the glasses were wonkier than my face). They just didn’t feel right. I debated with myself for a few seconds (I think I may do this more often than is healthy), and then jumped out of the van, locked up and headed back inside to return my disappointing purchase.
The clerk who sold me the glasses was busy with another customer by this time, but another clerk listened to my story, then opened the glasses to look at them, while telling me “you know, we can adjust them” as they fell from her hand and hit the cement floor, hard. Um, no thanks. I for sure do not want them now that you’ve dropped them on the floor. But I had to say that politely because a) my money had not yet been refunded and b) she was bigger than me. The clerk bent down to pick them up, without a word, all the while acting like she didn’t just drop them, blam! on the floor. She extended the arms and said “these are stretched out. You know we can still adjust them.” She gave me another pointed look.
Proud to say that I was very adult in that moment and did not scoff, roll my eyes and start my response with “ah, yeah but duh, you just frickin’ dropped them on the floor” but rather, maintaining eye contact (but totally not a creepy, serial killer gaze) I said “actually, this is a rather big purchase for me, and I think that I would like to give it some more thought before making my final decision. Thank you anyway though!” She looked at me like I was a dirty criminal who had stretched out the glasses and was now trying to pull a fast one over on her, but Costco policy reigned supreme and my money was refunded.
And that, long and drawn out story is why I am still wearing my five-dolla Giant Tiger shades and also why it is a very good thing (for me) that society defines ‘adult’ by a person’s chronological rather than mental age, or I would be so totally kicked outta da club.
~A.