The Glasses Menagerie

August 29, 2014

(Hey, look! News and stuff and crap to read!:

This week’s Secondhand SCIENCE rap is all about DNA methylation. It’s got bunny suits. A tenuous tie-in to the Simpsons, in honor of the episode marathon running this week. And no actual rapping. It’s all there. Check it out.

Also! If you’re Boston-based — or just a Massophile — you might enjoy some of my recent spew over on Apartments.com. Pick a topic. You got books and museums and Fenway and beer and “Ahts” and more beer. Because always beer.

Finally! Friday night is sketch night. Come see our sketch team Always on Deck in the Best of Boston Fest at ImprovBoston. Ten pm. Be there, polar bear.

Okay, that’s it. Back to the regularly-scheduled idiocy.)

Some questions can be answered with a simple thought experiment. Questions like, “Would habanero ice cream be totally delicious?” (yes) and “Should you tell Ronda Rousey she throws like a girl?” (no, no you should not)

Other questions, though seemingly simple, require careful experimentation to adequately answer. Here’s one of them now:

“How many stupid pairs of sunglasses do I need to own to prevent myself from having to walk around in the glaring sunlight squinting like an idiot?”

“You’ve thought-experimented the shit out of this thing, and you’ve got a solution.”

For many people, the answer to this question would be “one”. I am not one of those people.

For other people, maybe the answer is “two”. As in, one pair and a backup pair in case of emergency. I’m not one of these people, either. My entire life is a case of emergency.

“Aha,” you might say, you dogged genius, you. You’ve thought-experimented the shit out of this thing, and you’ve got a solution. Maybe it’s this:

One pair of sunglasses for every place where you spend a lot of time, so you’ll always have one handy.

That’s a great answer. Very well thought-out. And flexible for any situation. Examine your life, and solve for ‘n’.

It’s also wrong. At least for me.

I spend significant time in three places: my home, my car and my office. I own four pairs of sunglasses — cheap, shittily-made ugly-ass sunglasses, sure, but sunglasses, nonetheless. And I never seem to have a stupid pair in the right place when the sun comes out.

Which is, like, every single goddamned day. Seriously, sun. Take a nap some afternoon. Earth can survive without you for ten minutes. Little breathing room, is all I’m asking.

The point is, the sun is bright. And I, evidently, am not. I drove home tonight with the white-hot wrath of the sun’s radiation searing holes in my retinas because none of my idiot sunglasses was at my desk. Or in the car. Or in my pocket.

Once I got home, sure. I practically tripped over all the stupid sunglasses lying around here. With a bottle of aspirin and a half dozen condoms, I could run a frigging CVS out of my bedroom with the rack’s worth of flimsy sunglasses in there. But they weren’t where I needed them. And now I probably have eyeball cancer.

So I still don’t know the answer to my question. But I know two things I’m doing tomorrow: shoving three pairs of shades into my pants when I leave, so I can leave a trail of the things behind me wherever I go. And?

I’m buying more shitty sunglasses. Maybe when I have a pair for every deliciously-charred nerve ending on my retinas, I’ll be able to find one when I need it.

But probably not. Like I said, I’m not all that bright.