August 11, 2008--Bono & Me

I’ve had my Raybans for more than ten years. But for at least the last four they have become so progressively scared and scratched that whatever benefit I might have been deriving from their UV-filtering capacity, forget about looking cool, has been more than offset.

So much so that I have been observed to drive our various rental cars with my head tipped so far down, with my chin resting virtually on my chest, as to appear to be staring at the dashboard rather than the road when in fact I had cocked my head that way so as to be able to see through the only still unruined part of the otherwise clouded lenses.

Thus, since about 2004, I’ve had my eyes open for a replacement pair. And since Rayban no longer appears to make my model, I have reluctantly been in the market for either another type of Raybans or some other brand.

But I hate change. And even more I hate sunglasses. Or at least the fetishistic interest that surrounds so many people’s passionate involvement with them. I’m a minimalist in this regard. Actually, maybe really more a contrarian minimalist snob.

And between now and the time when I bought my Raybans the price for any pair not bought from a street vendor on Lower Broadway has risen at almost the same rate as a gallon of gasoline. And not because the plastic out of which they are made is a petroleum-based product.

The reason so-called “designer glasses,” which in truth have no relationship or association with the so-called designers who sell, sorry “license” their names, cost a fortune now is the same reason why designer pocket books, sorry handbags, now cost on average upwards of two grand—because they can get away with charging that much. They assume that many of us are a bunch of status-starved dupes.

And, as it turns out, me included.

Because just the other day I relented and popped for about 150 bucks for a pair of Serengetis. Silly me, until then I thought this was the name of a desert in southern African, not a pair of high-end sunglasses. Oh well. The world is complicated and I’m trying hard to keep up.

To make sure everyone in the know knows my new shades are Serengetis there’s a swoosh of an “S” embossed on the upper left hand corner of one of the lenses. It’s taken me a while to get used to that since it’s situated right there in the field of my peripheral vision—so much so that for the first two days I asked Rona to clean my glasses repeatedly thinking they might be dirty rather than logoed. But I’ve gotten used to the “S” and suppose I should feel good that it signals to others in the know how hip I am.

Serengetis are so special that not only do they come with what appears to me to be a bombproof case, that when doing a little Web searching about them—to see if I got a good price and why all the fuss about them--I learned that airline pilots prefer them to almost every other brand, with the exception of Vedalos (whatever they are). That was reassuring. In an emergency, if ever I have to take over a 747 in mid-flight, I’ll be well shaded.

Also, as a measure of their quality or how seriously the Serengeti folks take themselves, mine came with a full page of instructions about what to do if I have a problem with them, how to pack them if I have to send them in for a 100,000 mile servicing, how they are guaranteed (with only a “limited warranty” to be sure), and how to care for them.

Regarding the latter, allow me to quote from the printed materials I received (much more, by the way, than came along with my new MacBook Pro laptop). I think from that you’ll see what a good buy I made:

Please take care of your Serengeti sunglasses. On those rare occasions when you aren’t wearing them, store them in their case. . . . By taking a few precautions to preserve the lenses, they will last for many year (sic).

Of course since I want mine to last many year (sic), I’ve been wondering about those rare occasions when I won’t be wearing them. After dark, I suppose. But then again perhaps not since I see plenty of very cool people in Soho wearing them very late at night. But for sure I’ll take them off when sleeping. I’ll stash them in their case where they should be safe even if the ceiling collapses, and that will help me sleep through the night since I won’t have to lie awake worrying about them.