I'm the first to admit it: I do a lot of Internet shopping. For better or worse, there it is.
Lately in my excursions, I've noticed a retail trend. Specifically, a disturbing proliferation of these:
What are they? Moto-cross reading glasses? No. Safety eye guards that come with Barbie's Malibu Table Saw? I wish.No, brothers and sisters, these are ONION GOGGLES.
That's right - safety glasses designed to be worn while (help me) chopping onions.
Is It Me?
Does anyone else have a problem with this? And before I go any further, let me say that I love a good, silly product. Really, I do. You search my house (I'll need to see that warrant, btw) and you'll find plenty of Bump-Its and Bread Buddeez, and I've already left written instructions that I be buried with my Pig-Tail Food Flipper wedged in hand.
But, come on.
Special goggles for slicing onions? Exactly how fragile are we at this point in the social evolutionary process? More disturbing yet, is this only the tip of the hothouse-flower iceberg? What's next? Bacon-frying helmets? Paper-cut survival training? Steel-toed bedroom slippers?
I like to think that I can take on pretty much any food item in my kitchen mano-a-mano and come out on top. The way I see it, if Laura Ingalls Wilder could turn milk into butter without body armor, then I should be able to turn an onion into relish and live to tell the tale.
Besides, how many friggin' onions are you pushing through that kitchen of yours? If you've pulled KP duty on the U.S.S. Nimitz and you're looking at the business end of an onion Matterhorn, well, okay then. Goggle away and Godspeed.
Around here, though, I can safely predict that by the time I've rummaged through all the drawers and located a knife and my goggles, then spent ten minutes arranging the goggles so they don't rotate my bangs around to the wrong side of my head, I've lost all interest in slaughtering a single onion the size of a racquetball and instead I'm reaching for the phone to order Chinese-adjacent from the little place down the street with the broken neon sign and scented menus.
But, Wait. It Gets Worse.
It's not enough simply to fend off the ocular onion assault. One must do so with style. That's right - style.
Forget your parachute - what color are you onion goggles?
Let us now turn to The Book of Amazon.com, and let us read aloud a passage from Housewares 3:16...
"...for there were multiple choices upon the web sales page that there would be no one in the land who might be stricken with onion goggles in a color shade as to render his skin sallow and unappealing or otherwise demean his stature among the good people of his master-planned community. And the choices were many and thus:"
Okay, help me out. What are the rules here? Can you wear white onion goggles after Labor Day? Are the red ones too racy for work? Do the green ones make me look fat?
The reality of the situation is that if you invite me over for dinner and answer the door wearing a pair of onion goggles and brandishing a knife, I'm going to assume two things:
- Someone has secretly laced your bean dip with PCP.
- It's my civic duty to take you down.
I'm not entirely adverse to the idea of tear-prevention eye wear. And, while I will continue to battle fruits, vegetables and assorted luncheon meats armed with only a scrunchie and a can of Glade to knock down the fumes, I would be quite interested in goggles that would allow me to watch "Terms of Endearment" without using three boxes of tissues and changing my salt-soaked t-shirt every half hour.
Ooh, I hope they come in lavender.
