So The Wife and I are poking around the shops along Walnut Street in Shadyside Saturday afternoon, and we wander in to one of our favorite unproductive stops — a place that sells beautiful eyeglasses at prices we absolutely cannot afford. We like looking anyway, so whenever we’re nearby, we poke our heads in for a minute.

One reason we enjoy visiting this particular location is the folks who work there are wonderful — always willing to chat and make suggestions, even after we’ve made it clear that we’d need to take out a mortgage to be able to pay for the frames we really like. Saturday was no different in that regard; the male clerk almost immediately stops eating his sandwich to tell me how much he likes the glasses I’m wearing.

As I’m handing a pair of $700 frames to The Wife so she can try them on, I sheepishly tell the guy they came from America’s Best, and they cost about forty bucks. He is undaunted, also noticing my watch. He says it looks fabulous and wonders where it came from.

I’m now holding a pair of bargain frames — I think about $300 or so — and I look down to my wrist. I can’t believe I now have to tell this guy — who I’d guess has forgotten more about fashion than I’ve ever known — that my $15 Coleman watch came from Target.

Yes. Coleman. The camping gear people.

The chatting kind of slowed down at that point. I couldn’t tell if he was impressed or annoyed.