Aviator Goggles, or how The Simpsons made me the woman I am today

I want aviator goggles. I want them so freakin’ bad.

Also, I was tiny, matching aviator goggles for my two dogs.

This all started with an obscure fantasy of buying myself a Vespa scooter and perusing the French and/or Italian countryside. There would be bread, and cheese, and wine, and my puppies, because where most women will insert a scantily clad gentleman into their far-fetched European fantasies, I often choose puppies instead.

And then, as the fantasy evolved, I decided that I would be wearing a flowy yellow skirt, and a classy white blouse, sensible brown tie-up boots with only an inch or two (or three) of heel, and on my face would sit an oversized pair of aviator goggles. And possibly an aviator cap, too. (On my hair, not my face. You understand.)

The Vespa scooter dream has all but died away, and trekking across Europe with puppies in tow is a bureaucratic nightmare, what with the various quarantine and vaccination requirements. I have all the skirts, blouses, and sensibly-healed boots I need (using the most modest interpretation of the word), but one part of my longing remains: the desire for adorable, steam-punky, oversized aviator goggles. And maybe an aviator cap, too. And then matching adorable aviator caps and goggles for my two adorable puppies.

Why?

Maybe because Steve McQueen and Memphis Bell were integral part of my formative childhood years. Maybe because a small part of me never stopped idolizing vintage fighter pilots, and Amelia Earhart, and all the airplane scenes of Indiana Jones. Maybe because all glasses are a little bit comically oversized on my tiny, hobbit-like face. I just don’t know.

Or maybe it was that episode of the Simpsons where Lisa, for a science project, starts putting Bart and a pet hamster through a series of intelligence tests (with the hamster continually coming out on top). In the end Bart bests her by dressing up the hamster in aviator goggles and placing him in a toy plane - the judges are awed by the hamster’s cuteness and award Bart the top prize (angering Lisa).

And really, can you blame them?