For a brief time on Monday, masses of Americans were not glued to their iPhones but gazing upward at the sky.
Thank you Mother Nature for this this healthy reset in the human experience. To take time out and appreciate communally the physical world we live in.
And a big shout out to the many manufacturers of the cardboard solar eclipse glasses that came through with their promise of a magical mystery tour of the total solar eclipse.
Millions of Gen Z’s swapped out their edgy Warby Parkers for the brand’s stylish and free aqua eclipse glasses to gaze at the shifting moon and sun.
And the glasses delivered, making good on their promise.
It was amazing.
Truthfully, I had my doubts.
Vintage Ad X-Ray Specs
Deep skepticism born of decades-old disappointment at another pair of glasses that came with magical yet scientific promises.
I speak alas of the infamous “X-Ray Specs” ubiquitously advertised in the back of every comic book from Little Dot to Batman.
For the price of dollar- just 4 weeks’ worth of allowance for me- I could have the ability to see through flesh and see bones. Look at your friends and “see” under their clothes the ad tempted.
Vintage Ad X-Ray Specs
Imagine the thrill of getting a gander of my fourth-grade teacher naked while she wrote on the blackboard!
Without her ever suspecting!
They promised their scientific optical principles really worked and offered loads of laughs!
The truth was these plastic glasses came filled with cardboard that had depictions of the very things you could actually see if you had x-ray vision.
The joke was on me.
You could buy the x ray specs in the comic books but the real x-ray skill was still left to comic book heroes like Superman.
At least I never fell for the Sea Monkeys.
Envisioning The American Dream 
I fell for the Sea Monkeys. More than once, because I got them for my son. Ha ha. One of them ate all the other ones and it got big enough to see. Money well spent.
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Wow, I didn’t think they were really alive. I had always heard they were dried shrimp that blew up larger when put in water.
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Nah, they’re alive. I don’t remember the ones from when I was a little kid, but the ones I got for my son (with the fancy condo-aquarium) were alive. They’re like krill. We had to watch out for hungry whales, just the baleen ones, but still … they can do a lot of damage in a small living room, those whales.
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This is all new information for me. I believe the ones from my childhood were brine shrimp and they packed eggs in a state of hibernation that come to life with water.
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I longed for the fantasy-fulfilling glasses. But if they actually worked, wouldn’t every boy in my school have a pair? Or two? Alas, no peer endorsements.
As to sea monkeys. Meh.
Nerd that I was, I ordered the Big Bag of Foreign Stamps. Which did not quite disappoint.
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I ordered the stamps too, which I loved. And still have.
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The orange drawstring bag?
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The orange drawstring bag?
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I’m pretty sure it was just a plastic bag.
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