My Favorite Sunglasses

I awoke early in the morning in an unfamiliar hotel room as a panic gripped me, a certainty that the night before I'd left my favorite sunglasses in the handle of my friend's car, and when our group went out to dinner and someone else sat in the front seat, they had surely fallen out in the restaurant parking lot. I squinted at the nearby table, illuminated by the first morning light permeating the drawn curtains. I could make out my wallet, keys, watch, and some loose change, but definitely not my glasses. I had no recollection of bringing my glasses in the night before. My friend snored loudly in the next bed, and though I wanted to wake him to borrow his keys and run down to check the car, I decided to let him sleep. We had a long drive ahead of us, and I wasn't going to jeopardize the lives of anyone on our road trip by interrupting the driver's rest.

At some point in my youth, I decided cool people wore sunglasses. I could eradicate my status as the king nerd of my home town simply by wearing cool sunglasses. My first pair came free after my mom sent in some UPC symbols from various symbols, and I proudly sported three tone neon plastic sunglasses with a cord in seventh grade, wearing them hooked over my shirt collar as cool people on television did. Like most of my childhood efforts to be cool, I simply made myself even more the center of geek ridicule. My next pair of glasses, also plastic, were black with purple sides, and had a small Bart Simpson head in the corner of one of the lenses. I loved those, and though the Bart head faded I'm pretty sure I still have them here somewhere. Those too invited mockery, especially from my neighborhood friends who, at 4-6 years younger once looking up to me, were now beginning to realize what a loser I really was as they got older and cooler.

It wasn't until high school on a trip to an indoor flea market in Massapequa that I found the perfect sunglasses. Also made of plastic, they had mirror lenses and were solid black, with a streamlined design. Years before the first Matrix film I'd discover the same look as the characters in that movie. The friend who accompanied me suggested some other styles, some in metal and others with less severe tinting, but my mind was made up. I'd never seen anything so cool, and I was beginning to realize that I had to pick things in life that appealed to me, because people would always find something to make fun of or disagree with. People in my life would come and go, but I'd always be with me and have to live with my own decisions.

On the cusp of graduating college, a friend of one of my neighborhood friends hooked us up with a great price on some tickets to a Pearl Jam concert at Randall's Island. I'd only seen local bands in small venues prior to this, and the most famous group I'd heard live was Biohazard at a small club in Huntington. The chance to see my favorite band at a real outdoor concert was one I dare not pass up. At the time, fifty dollars was a great price as well, although my mom didn't see it that way. We got in a big argument about me throwing money away that resulted in the decision that if I had money to waste on something like that, I could start paying rent. I didn't care. The change in my living situation would be worth seeing the band, and as I was about to enter the real world I knew it might be my last chance to do something like that before burying myself in work and responsibility for the next 40 or 50 years. Besides, at the age of 20, I was beyond any obligation my parents had to let me live at home for free, and I should have been giving something back to them anyway.

The concert was everything I hoped it to be and more, and I had no regrets. Near the end of the show as the songs became more furious and the fans more energetic, I was soon moshing and jumping up and down with the crowd. On one of my exuberant leaps, both my sunglasses and my ticket stub flew from the pocket of my flannel shirt into the air. I had a split second to make a decision and, as my hand shot out, it was the sunglasses I snatched. I save stubs from movies, shows and other memorable events, but on that day I would lose perhaps the greatest of these mementos. I looked in vain at the mud, grass, and kicking sneakers around me, but there was no sign of it. My friend let me borrow his ticket later to scan in at the company I was interning at, and a digital scan of someone else's ticket is the only keepsake from the show, besides a t-shirt. I'd let the stub fly to save a pair of four dollar sunglasses and, on that day, forever increased their sentimental value.

At this point, my tale naturally shifts back to Monday morning, around 7 AM, where I lay awake remembering the adventures my sunglasses and I had shared, and the irony that they'd make it through a mosh pit only to end up on the pavement of some random steak house in Easton, Pennsylvania. Cautiously, I swung my feet off the side of the bed, and crept over to my black duffel bag. Perhaps the glasses weren't in the car when I got out the night before. Perhaps they were still on my forehead and, when I slung the bag over my shoulder, I inadvertently knocked them into the bag where they blended in. I felt around, finding only a battery charger, a USB cable, a cell phone cable, and various toiletries. I next checked my empty cooler, and moved on to the refrigerator where I'd moved the contents of the cooler. Finally, there was a plastic bag with a bag of Doritos, a road atlas, and some CDs. I felt around the bag carefully, finding nothing. When I set it down on the wooden table, I heard a soft clicking sound. I lifted it again, and felt inside, this time under the Doritos bag. I felt something plastic and solid and, to my great relief, found my favorite sunglasses.

Content, I set them on the table and was able to get back to sleep for another hour or so. I know it was a trivial thing to be concerned with, and that they've seen better days and I can afford a better pair. The thing about sentimental value though is that it's an emotional response, and doesn't necessarily have to make any mathematical sense. Neither logic nor a price tag should ever apply to the little things that add meaning to our lives.