Tim and the Magic Sunglasses

Once upon a time, there lived a middle-aged man named Tim. Now Tim was a fine sort – never causing trouble, always caring for his fellow humans, and just being generally a good example for the children of the world to follow. He bathed on a regular basis, he ne’er used a profanity (ahem…) and generally lived a clean life of merriment, jocularity and joyfulness.

One day Tim noticed that his well-worn sunglasses had mysteriously developed the bad habit of only having one ‘ear holder’. Sure, they still looked sharp from the right and the right-front. But from the left it looked like Tim had levitated the sunglasses on his face in a most peculiar manner. He went about life for a couple of days in this manner until it became evident that his hard-earned pennies would have to be used to bring about a new pair of shaded spectacles.

So the next morning Tim scraped together the coins necessary for the big purchase and shoved them into the front pocket of his dusty jeans. He walked, barefoot, all of the way to the local country store down the dirt road, scuffling his feet in a random manner and kicking up the dust into random swirls that dissolved with the wind. It was a perfect day. There were new sunglasses afoot.

He finally got to the local store, “Ye Olde Shoppe of Target”, and walked past the old men chatting around the smoldering wood stove straight to the sunglasses display. His eyes grew wide with wonderment as he gazed upon the dozens and dozens of varieties, gleaming and shimmering in the sunlight streaming through the windows. His eyes were immediately drawn to one particular pair though – it was like they were calling his name. Tim slowly removed them from the rack and placed them on his face. They nestled carefully on top of his nose and cuddled his eyes, wrapping around and hugging his ears like they had belonged there all of his life. It was a match made in heaven.

Tim took the glasses to the old lady at the register, and emptied the now-dusty coins onto the counter. The glasses were his and they were coming home with him. He wore them all the way home and they protected his delicate eyesight from the encroaching rays of the sun nicely. It was a perfect day with perfect sub-70’s temperatures so he decided to enjoy the outside for once – and nestled into a comfy wooden rocking chair on the porch. Tim took out his iPad and hit the power button, preparing to unleash a veritable torrent of useless information upon his brain.

But nothing happened. The screen remained black.

Tim tilted his head to the side the same way as his trusty dog Rusty does when he hears a train whistle on the distant tracks. He pushed the button again, thinking that he simply had depressed the button incorrectly. Still nothing. He held the button down for 10 seconds. Nothing. He pressed the ‘Home’ button and the power button at the same time. Still black. Suddenly his world was crashing around him. Would he have to get a new iPad? Would the saved games he had spent his life savings be ported correctly to the new iPad? All of these questions swirled around in his head like the aforementioned dust in the road.

To be sure it was really broken, Tim called out to his school-marm wife who was in cooking vittles for dinner. “Mother….” he said, “Can you come see if you can turn this on?” Mother came out, hit the button and said “There….” and walked back inside. Tim looked quizzically (again) at the iPad – it was still black. He again summoned Mother to look at it. She said, “I’ve got vittles going….I can’t keep coming out and playing your games…”. But she did it anyway and pressed the button again, marching back inside and letting the screen door slam behind her.

Tim looked at the iPad in his hands. Black screen. What the heck was his wife talking about? As evening was moving in on them, slowly, thoughtfully, he removed the sunglasses from his face as he continued to ponder the onerous situation. But as the sunglasses crept their way down his nose he was amazed to see the iPad coming to life! He quickly took the sunglasses completely off and like the whippoorwills coming back to the old oak tree with the tire swing in the yard, the iPad functioned perfectly!

He put the sunglasses back on: Black screen.

He took the sunglasses off: Full retina-display iPad.

He put the sunglasses back on: Black screen.

He took the sunglasses off: BOOM!

Tim slowly looked at his now-magic sunglasses and wondered what else could be done with these darkly-tinted polarized pieces of wonderment. Could he now see Sasquatch? Could he now see the Loch Ness Monster? The opportunities were endless and he could not wait to explore these magic sunglasses. Slowly he rose from his chair, opened the squeaky storm door and went inside to eat his vittles.

Editor’s Note: True story (except for the vittles). These sunglasses stop all wonderment coming from the iPad.

Editor’s Note 2: Did you know that it’s impossible to take a picture of a black screen iPad with the same iPad? Think about it.