Cheap Sunglasses

Now go out and get yourself some big black frames
With the glass so dark they won't even know your name
And the choice is up to you cause they come in two classes
Rhinestone shades or cheap sunglasses
Oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah
--ZZ Top

Over the years, I’ve lost many, many pairs of sunglasses. By the time I was 30, the unaccounted-for shades must have been in the hundreds. I don’t know how it would happen; it was as if I just threw them out the window of a moving car, and then promptly forgot doing so.

“Where are my sunglasses?” was a lifelong refrain.

A few times I tried buying expensive shades, thinking the the cost would cause me to be more mindful. No luck. Gone within a week.

One day, my now ex-wife came home from shopping while I was gardening in the backyard. I remember the exchange distinctly. She showed me the new pair of sunglasses she had just bought. I admired them. I tried them on. We both agreed they were “me.”

“How much do you want for them?” I asked, tongue in cheek.

“Two bucks,” she answered.

“Sold!” I produced the bills.

“Ha!” she cried victoriously, “I just paid one dollar for them at the drugstore!”

We had a good laugh. But I still have those sunglasses, and that was in 1990 -- nearly thirty years ago.

For obvious reasons, my current wife, Jena, is not fond of the glasses, even though she acknowledges  they are still “me.” Awkward associations with the ex aside, I love those glasses. I’ve misplaced them on a few occasions. Despite Jena’s promise to not hasten their demise, I have suspected foul play. In one instance, they languished for six months under the passenger seat of my car (please forgive my suspicion, Darling!). I’m confident that she would not share my grief if they were to, say, fall into a wood-chipper.

The glasses have been around the world. I’ve replaced the temple screws many times. They have gone in and out of style many times -- not that I care at this point. It’s not like I set out to keep them for three decades; they have just refused to go away. But after all that time, they have become dear old friends.

I hope that when my sunglasses do shuffle off this mortal coil, it won’t be that I left them at a rest-stop 100 miles back, or worse, they just disappeared with no explanation, never to re-emerge. No, I want them to go dramatically, like falling off my face as I lean over the edge of the Grand Canyon, or by somehow diverting a shark attack.

In all reality, I suspect they will outlive me. So I hereby request: Bury me with those cheap sunglasses.

Singapore, 2004. The earliest picture I have of the glasses

Ireland, 2006

Myrtle Beach, 2019

Alaska, 2014