Songs in the key of me: Not a fan of big sunglasses

I wanted to buy a new pair of sunglasses this week but I couldn't because the styles I liked were too small for my head.

These styles of sunglasses were actually large, just not as large as my head, but I didn't know that until I tried them on.

"How did these suddenly become spectacles?" I thought when I looked into the thin mirror on the side of the store's sunglasses carousel. "Why do I look like Geppetto?"

I was looking for new sunglasses because it turns out that I don't like the sunglasses I bought last year. I thought I liked them when I was buying them, but apparently I couldn't make an accurate decision with that plastic security clip stores always attach between to the middle of sunglasses.

I don't blame stores for not wanting people to steal their merchandise, but it seems technology has advanced to the point where manufactures could imbed the security device inside the sunglasses.

Or, so no one could ever wear them, the store could put the sunglasses in that thick shrink-wrapped plastic all electronic music players come in.

What I would like to see more of, however, is those exploding green paint devices stores used all the time on fashionable clothes a few years ago when everyone I knew was worried that they might get murdered for wearing expensive basketball shoes.

"Did you hear what happened to that one person in that one place?" white people would tell each other in desperate whispers.

Anyway, maybe it's good that I can't find a pair of sunglasses I really like. There's a lot of people, like one of my friends, who love their sunglasses so much they never take them off.

Once my friend comes inside, she simply shifts her sunglasses to the top of her head where they sit, ready for any sudden explosion of light.

I'm a lot worse than that about my coat in the winter, though. I never take that off. It's like having pounds of chain wrapped around my torso which is attached with a variety of complicated locks.

In this situation, I know the codes to the locks, but how much time do I have each day to open and close a set of locks?

No time, I am sure, especially when there are shrink-wrapped music players to open.

- Contact reporter Dave Frank at dfrank@nevadaappeal.com or 881-1212. His column, "Songs in the Key of Me," appears Thursdays.