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The Sunglass Metaphor

January 11, Volume 3 Issue 2

There once was a man from Nantucket. Now I know what you’re thinking, this isn’t a dirty limerick, I’ve got methods to my madness. This man from Nantucket, he died at the ripe old age of 64, and upon examination of his closet, his family found three hundred ninety two pairs of sunglasses, dating all the way back to the fifties. What did his vast collection of sunglasses tell us about his love life? Upon investigation, it would appear that Mr. Nantucket, since the fifties had been quite the ladies man, never keeping one longer than a few weeks. Tall, short, fat, thin, pretty, ugly, he had had them all and none of them were right for him.

Kara once owned the perfect pair. They made her look awesome, they held her hair in place when resting upon her head, they complimented every outfit she wore. She wore them everywhere, she loved to show them off. They were her.

Me on the other hand, I don’t really give sunglasses much thought. I buy a pair if absolutely necessary, and usually the ones I pick out are the wrong idea.

When we still lived in Kalamazoo one day, Kara and I were drunk as skunks at a local hotel with a wonderful bar, to which I had gift certificates to. This was one of the perks of being the Concession Stand Manager at the movie theater, the perks. Tons of prize certificates, so little time.

We were stumbling to the car, something we probably should have driven home, when Kara told me she had a sad story to tell. Intrigued, drunk, and ready to sit down again, I asked her to go on. An idea had leapt into my head. Could our love lives possibly be compared to our relationship with our sunglasses?

One day her pair of sunglasses were out with her on a little tubing adventure in Northern Michigan. This was when she was still running around with Zeke, long before Jed ever graced the scene. Kara lay on her inner tube in the river, and Zeke lay sprawled out on the one next to her. He got out and leaned over to kiss her, knocking her sunglasses off in the process. While he went in for the sugar, her glasses hit the river.

She screamed like a banshee and dove in after them, searching high and low for her lost pair of glasses. They were never recovered and the time of death was listed at 3:02 p.m. on a sunny Saturday afternoon.

For weeks, if not months, Kara was devastated. She tried on pair after pair, but still she longed only for the old ones. They were all she wanted, they fit her perfectly, and she couldn’t understand why bad things happened to good people. She moped around, and would go out, often times trying on pairs of sunglasses on her journey. She’d buy a cheap pair to get her through but in the end they ended up in the garbage.

That is, until one day. She tried on a pair that was almost perfect. This almost perfect pair sat just fine on her head, and when worn across the eyes, looked pretty damned good too. She looked at the price tag and cringed, but unwilling to part with perfection, she slapped down the money and walked out of the store happy.

The sunglasses however, do not leave her car. She wears them constantly, but she’s scared to take them out in public for fear of what might happen to them. They belong to her, and she to them, however if she ever finds that first pair again, she’ll pick them up, put them on and live happily ever after.

My sunglass story is a little tragic as well. As mentioned before, I rarely, if ever give sunglasses much of a thought. That is…until the sun is shining brightly in my eyes. I would then pull over at the nearest gas station and buy a pair, whether it was good for me or not. Should the mood strike me while actually shopping, I might actually do some shopping, but when it came to picking out the good ones, I really had no clue as to what I was doing, and would walk out of the store with the wrong ones.

The relationship with the wrong pair would usually last about two weeks. The relationship with my sunglasses wasn’t much longer.

What happens to these mysterious disappearing sunglasses? Several things. The most recurring problem was I would just lose them. Either someone would accidentally make off with them, or they’d just disappear into that bizzaro world where socks end up after the dryer. Occasionally our beautiful relationship would end tragically, with me sitting on them, ending them once and for all. Once I actually left the store without them, not my proudest day by the way. Sometimes the missing would inexplicably reappear, only to disappear again. Whatever the symptom, the end result was always the same. I can’t keep sunglasses, and I don’t think I’m ever destined to.

Zeke, Kara’s ex from way back picks pairs that are too small for his head, that don’t fit him fashionably either. I’ve never seen Jake with a pair of sunglasses, and Nick until recently has seemed too afraid to take his out of his car. Kaylee is constantly searching for a pair that is pink.

What are we looking for in sunglasses? Me, I’m looking for a pair that fits, that wont inexplicably vanish. Then again, aren’t we all?