When my brother first came home from college on his Thanksgiving vacation, he’d become worldly beyond his years.

He was no longer the rube he’d been a mere three months before. He’d discovered Bob Dylan, Eastern religions, sleazy bars, Swedish movies and exotic foods like oysters. Further, he was a font of intellectualism. In everyday conversation he’d mention the likes of Jean-Paul Sartre, existentialism, Marc Chagall, H.L. Mencken and other such lofty fare.

He’d become so cerebral he actually read the articles in Playboy … or so he claimed.

As befit a lad of his precocious urbanity, he’d pepper his speech with foreign phrases, as if it was something he’d done since birth. Once when I was complaining about some slight I’d suffered from my recent ex-friend, he waved his hand in dismissal and said, “Oh, vivre et laisse vivre.”

It was from him that I first heard the phrase “caveat emptor.” It’s Latin for “Let the buyer beware,” and after he explained it, it stuck with me. In fact, it’s been my guiding principle when I buy something substantial. And to make sure I don’t get taken advantage of with my purchases, I always try to do these three things:

First, I buy from area businesses.

Second, I buy from reputable companies.

And third, I make sure the merchandise comes with an excellent guarantee.

Price alone is never my main consideration. I like bargains as much as the next fella, but while you might get a cheaper price on something online or from a Plattsburgh mall, it can come back to bite you.

Recently, I bought something from the Blue Line here in My Home Town. It started giving me problems from the get-go and Matt and Mark labored mightily to analyze and correct them, but – Alas! — to no avail. So Matt packed it up and returned it to the manufacturer, who within a week corrected the problem, gratis.

But let’s say I’d bought it in Plattsburgh, and let’s say I’d gotten it much cheaper (which, by the way, is not a given). Then what? I’ll tell ya: Then I would’ve had to schlep to Plattsburgh and deal with people I don’t know, hand them the goods and hope they’d take care of it. And after all that, I’d have had to schlep back again to pick them up.

So cost, as you can see, is not computed only in terms of money but in time, effort, travel and so on.

Takin’ care of business

So you might think, what with me being a smart and scrupulous shopper, I never get burned. But if you do, think again. A sad example is The Great Sunglasses Shafting of ’15.

I don’t buy cheap sunglasses for two reasons. One is the frame, and the other is the lenses, both of which on cheap sunglasses are … well … cheap. As a result they never fit right, nor does the world look right through them.

I’d been rocking a pair of Ray Ban aviator shades for about 10 years and they’d become almost as stretched-out and wobbly as my knees, so it was time to get a new pair (shades, not knees). As luck would have it, in a silent auction I won a gift certificate for one of the area optical joints. So now I could get my new shades at a reduced price.

I didn’t know what brand I wanted, except I no longer wanted metal frames. That’s what I’d always had, and they always end up needing to be readjusted and tweaked and twisted and so on. Fergit it! I was gonna get a pair of performance shades that’d never need to be adjusted and that’d have groovy lenses and so on.

After checking out the store’s stock, I settled on a brand I didn’t know a lot about, but seemed to be top shelf — Rudy Project. Their literature promised they used the finest, most advanced materials, assembled them with the finest workmanship. They were made NOT in Third World, but in Italy. Beyond that, they had a three-year guarantee against manufacturer’s defects.

Gettin’ the business

I copped their top-of-the-line, big kahuna, flagship shades. They were polarized, polychromatic and for all I knew, polyamorous. But labeling aside, they fit fine and performed well in all light conditions.

Or at least they did for almost two years, at which point a bilious-green streak formed on the bottom quarter of each lens. At first I thought it was just grease or grime, but it wasn’t, since it couldn’t be cleaned off. Obviously, something was wrong with the lenses, namely a manufacturing defect, which was covered by their groovy guarantee.

So, following their recommended procedure, I called customer service and reported my problem.

“Did you buy them from an authorized dealer?” an operator said cheerily.

“Yep,” I said.

“And do you have proof of purchase?”

Again I said I did.

“And you bought them less than three years ago?” she said.

“Less than two years ago,” I said.

“Sounds like they delaminated,” she said.

I didn’t even know lenses were laminated in the first place, let alone could become DE-laminated, but not wanting to appear terribly ignorant of such things, I agreed with her.

“OK,” she said. “So can you tell me the serial number on the frame?”

It was just like delamination — I didn’t know frames even had serial numbers. But I found it and read it off to her. Let’s say it was R4829-K.

A long pause followed as she obviously checked something or other. Then she came back.

“Oh,” she said. “R4829-K? I’m afraid we discontinued those frames and we don’t have any of the lenses in stock anymore. So we can’t replace your lenses. Sorry.”

Granted, she said it very cheerily, but I was not the least bit cheered. As a matter of fact, I was shocked speechless. I hung up without being able to utter a word.

I’d called expecting to find out how to replace the lenses that were clearly covered by their guarantee. Instead, I was sitting there realizing I now had a pair of defective sunglasses and no prayer of getting them replaced. There wasn’t even some compromise deal, like if I sent my crappy shades in, they’d give me a pair of different shades at a reduced price. Uh-uh. Nothing. Nada. Bupkes.

Once the shock wore off, it was replaced by anger. I had all the paperwork and had complied with all conditions of their replacement guarantee, and those goniffs still stiffed me.

I reread the guarantee. There was no word about if frames were discontinued and lenses weren’t in stock. It just said they’d replace defective lenses, the momzers!

After anger, I got into a conspiracy mind-set.

What if the whole thing was a cynical set-up from the start? What if Rudy Project knew their lenses would bugger up long before the guarantee expired, so they intentionally ran out of frames and lenses of each model long before then. Then they could never have to replace any defective product.

After my conspiratorial thoughts abated, I slipped into outright paranoia.

What if, my fevered brain reasoned, they never discontinued frames at all? What if there are rows of warehouses in Genoa, or wherever the hey they ship their stuff from, stacked floor to ceiling with crate upon crate of good old R4829-K’s? And that cheery operator at customer service is just lying out both sides of her mouth about them being out of stock?

Yes, I know — that’s a far-out, almost crazy, assumption. But let’s face it: If their written word is no good, what’s their spoken one worth?

I stewed and fumed over that for another while, and finally I got in the place I needed to be — acceptance.

So I got stuck with a pair of verkochte shades – and verkochte, expensive shades at that. But so what? I still have my family and friends, my health and my menagerie. I live where I love, I’m happy being a ward of the state, I’m never bored. Ultimately, I live the life I want to live.

So what do I have to complain about? Nothing, that’s what.

Plus, I learned a valuable lesson. And as my pal Vern Friend is fond of saying, “You pay for your schooling.”

In this case, I’d have to buy another pair of sunglasses, and I had no idea what brand I’d get.

But, thanks to my “schooling,” I did know, absolutely, what brand I’d never get.