Friday, September 26, 2008

A clue: the haves and have-nots.

There is a store in Japan called Zoff that has inexpensive but cute eye wear and I decided that I should buy a pair or two while I'm here because glasses, like belts, are a useful tool but shouldn't be relegated to simple utilitarianism. Why use a piece of rope when you have your snazzy Western belt buckle, right? So, I bought a pair a while back. I hadn't really worn them much, though, because they are a little bit more delicate than my hunk o' plastic frames that can take a lickin and keep on tickin. But last night, I was going out to dinner with a former student and I decided I should wear the new ones. So I put them on and to my extreme surprise, I realized they are vaguely reminiscent of Sarah Palin's glasses. Well, what can you do? It's not as though I bought them because of that plus it seems unlikely in terms of fashion no-no's that her eye wear choices will go the way of the Hitler mustache. So I put them on and went downstairs.

My mom was there to see me out and complimented my new glasses. "Thanks," I told her. "I just realized, though, that they kind of look like Sarah Palin's glasses."
"Who's that?" she asked me.
Even given who was asking this question, I was shocked: we live in the internet age; even my mom gets her daily headlines emailed to her from the New York Times; we watch the international broadcasts of CNN and the BBC World News.
"Are you serious! You don't know who that is," I replied.
"No. And should I?"
"It's McCain's vice presidential running mate!"
"Oh, that," she said with some exasperation. "I thought you meant someone I knew."

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Living in Alaska, you can;t get away from anything Palin. It cracks me up that you have her glasses however. Did you hear that the company that made her glasses (in Japan) went from makeing abour 800 pair a year to an order of 1200 or something like that in less then one week. Our society is very weird. Americans are weird.