Shades on the Metro

{ 15 November 2009 @ 9:49 pm } · { On The Metro }
{ Tags: Metro, Sunglasses, Woman }

My Future’s So Bright: I Gotta Wear Shades

As I was on my way home from work Thursday, I encountered a quizzical, yet not uncommon DC Character: the woman who wears very large, very dark sunglasses on the metro.  I was struck by the choice of accessory mainly because the woman was on the metro, in a car, sitting as if she’d been on for several stops.

I searched for an explanation: why do you wear sunglasses on the metro?  I mean full-on sunglasses, not those crazy transition lens things that actually remain slightly tinted inside when they are supposed to be as clear as regular glasses.  No, these were the “I am sitting on the beach in the height of summer and really need to protect my retinas” sunglasses.

First, I thought maybe she had her eyes examined and her pupils were still dilated.  But, upon further reflection, she was holding a briefcase, and reading the paper.  She wouldn’t be reading the paper if her eyes were dilated!  I gave up on diagnosing her with an optical malady.

I searched for other practical explanations:

Forgot they were on?  No, the shades were huge and covered half her face, again, were very darkly tinted… there’s no way she could have forgotten they were on her face!

Blind? No, like I said, she was reading the paper (print copy, not braille), and did not have a sight stick or dog.

Enlightenment

Then, it dawned on me: the woman was a rare and even more antisocial-than-normal breed of metro riders – a breed so introverted that they adamantly reject human contact by adding physical barriers to their faces!  Her Chanel shades were like the Berlin Wall of DC mass transit.

This particular woman, in addition to the sunglasses, utilized a “don’t mess with me look” that was glued to her lips and accentuated by a defensive posture.  To boot, she was sitting in an aisle seat with a an empty window seat just daring someone to request, “Can I sit here?”  But the other riders didn’t have to ask; the  sunglasses said it all: “Don’t even ask, you’d better sit with that large man across the way … Do I look like I care that he seems unbalanced and smells like onion?”