THE SHADES EXPERIMENT

So as most of you know, I attended the Star Trek Convention in Las Vegas last week. If you're one of the few who did not know, I attended the Star Trek Convention in Las Vegas last week.

The convention is held at the Rio Hotel, for better or worse, and the layout of the Rio goes a little something like this: casino/hotel, long hallway, convention. So if you're in your hotel room or you're in the casino and you need to get to the convention (or vice versa), really your only way of getting there is that long hallway. I mean, you could go outside, but it was around 107 degrees while we were there, so you'd be an idiot to do so.

Because the long hallway is the easiest and sanest method of conveyance, you will often see a mix of Star Trek fans and Star Trek celebrities both coming and going.

As you can well imagine, this results in people frequently snapping their heads around and whispering excitedly, "Oh my God, that was (fill in Star Trek celebrity name here)!" And it puts fans on the lookout, since really, anybody could be somebody, if you take my meaning.

So I decided to perform a sociological experiment in the long hallway. On the way from the casino to the convention, passing hundreds of hawk-eyed fans, I was just my regular self. Just a guy in street clothes, walking along, another face in the crowd.

Then, just before I headed back to the casino from the convention, I stopped in the men's room and put on my sunglasses. My cool, super-dark, round sunglasses that I believe cost me $15 on amazon.

I made my way into the long hallway, and the effect was immediate. People's heads were snapping toward me and I heard some of them whisper "Who's that?" to one another. Just because of the sunglasses.

Now to be fair, and in the interest of full disclosure, I did strut just a little bit and instead of looking around at costumes, I looked straight ahead and treated those I passed with complete disinterest. But other than that, it was the same me who had walked down to the convention.

Only now there was the possibility I was somebody. And evidently, that was irresistible.

I don't know precisely what that says about people, or about our celebrity-obsessed culture, or about society in general, but I can tell you this:

I wore those glasses a lot.