Looking at rose colored glasses through Rose Colored Glasses

I have often been accused of looking at the world through rose colored glasses.  At least once this turned out to be a good thing.

Back in the 80's, I worked as a teacher in Ponce, Puerto Rico. The English language school recruited heavily from New York and New Jersey. We took the jobs figuring that the adventure compensated for the really low pay. The school hired us figuring  that our ability to speak American accented English compensated for our inexperience.  The first year teachers banded together each year in search of cheap adventure.  

One of the first forays was a trip to the island of Culebra, three pale teachers and my equally pale significant other. We drove to Fajardo and took the ferry, planning on finding a cheap room when we got there, but willing to sleep on the beach if we had too. Two days of white sand beaches, snorkeling and exotic foods.   It wasn't expensive, but it was enough to seriously cut into our resources.

Waiting for the ferry, I spotted a pair of sunglasses on sale-- big round rose-colored glasses. My significant other pointed out that they were pretty useless as sunglasses and tried to talk me into a pair I couldn't afford. UV protection, he said.  I can afford these, I said.

BUT, these sunglasses were magical. When we arrived at the white sand beach, I put them on and I saw that everyone was sunburned. I took them off, no visible sunburn, back on and there were big patches of bright pink and red skin. It was very simple -- the cheap pink/red lenses made everything that was white look pink. The paler something was, the brighter pink it would appear. I could look at you through those glasses and tell you exactly where you would burn and how bad it would be. I drove us into the shade before lunch and made everyone cover themselves with towels and shirts.

The next morning everyone was sunburned exactly as I had seen it the day before, but at least we were pink and not red. Worth every penny, and besides, I looked really cool in them.