Barack Obama, Sunglasses, and NASCAR

A momentous thing is happening as I type this. 

As momentous and profound a thing as has ever taken place in our national history.  Something is happening today that is going to change our country, forever.

I'm not going to talk about it, though.

See me tomorrow for that.  Today, I am going to talk about something else.

Sunglasses.

That's what I said.  Sunglasses.

OK, at this point most of you are talking aloud to your screens saying things like:  "WTF are you talking about?"

Well, it's like this:  Yesterday, while I was working my ass off, moving everything out of our range storage area... targets, tools, blah, blah blah, preparatory to installing our new shelving units, I dropped my sunglasses while two of us were moving a particularly heavy box.  Well, my sunglasses hit the floor, remaining intact until they went crunch under the sole of my boot.

"Oh man!" I thought... wait.  No.  Thats not really what I thought.  The truth is that quite a few epithets flew from my mouth, while my colleague laughed like nobody's business.  I was irritated, because I had those shades for nearly a year.  I was fond of them.  What's more, they meant something to me since my sweetie had bought them for me while we were on vacation last summer.

Here is the thing about me and sunglasses:  I wore glasses from the time I was 8 years old, until shortly after my 41st birthday, when I took the plunge and had Lasik corrective surgery on my eyes.  In a scant 20 minutes (maybe less) my vision went from 20/200 (yes, it was that bad) to 20/15.  I was beyond ecstatic as we walked out of the surgical center with me exclaiming that I could read street signs, and license plates etc.. without corrective lenses for the first time since I was a child.

Now, being able to read without glasses was great.  Not needing to push y glasses back into their proper place was fantastic.  Believe me, I was on cloud nine, and if you have had this procedure, you know what I mean.  All of those things were great, but better than all of that, was the ability to wear regular sunglasses.  Yeah, I know, you probably think that this is strange, but believe me when I tell you how much this can mean to someone who has spent his adult life without the freedom to just put on sunglasses whenever I felt like it.

So, after the surgery I sort of went nuts with the sunglasses.  Knowing my own propensity for losing things, I  refrained from buying some expensive shades like Oakley's.  Instead, opting to by a series of Oakley knock-offs from nearly every kiosk in every mall in northern Virginia.  I bought 'em all.... Ray-Ban Wayfarer's, Wayfarer II's, those cool ergonomically shaped glasses that look like they are bound to make you run faster and jump higher (tell me someone knows that reference).

I had sunglasses in my car, Mrs GF's car, in my office, at home... pretty much everywhere I would need them.  I didn't really need that many, but I had them\... just because I could.

Eventually, this number dwindled due to loss or breakage, but I wasn't heartbroken, because none of hem had cost that much.  It wasn't long after that, while on vacation in Orlando, that I discovered that Wal-Mart sold the full line of NASCAR sunglasses.

Go ahead and laugh, I'll wait.

No, I'm not a NASCAR fan, I don't enjoy racing.  I find it to be an extreme bore, BUT, the thing is this, NASCAR sunglasses are fully polarized, they are built fairly tough, and they only cost between 12 and ten dollars!  A perfect combination. 

Anyway, since then, every summer, when we go to Orlando, my bestest pal in the world buys me a new pair of NASCAR shades.  I was hoping that the par that I broke yesterday would make it until August.

Damn.

Well, not being someone to take defeat lying down, I bought a new pair at our local Wal-Mart yesterday, and I have already bonded with them... but that doesn't mean that I don't want a new pair in August.