One of the downsides of living in a smallish town is the limited shopping choices.
I decided I needed to get a more open motorcycle helmet for those days when the temperatures are in the 90's. My black open-face model was boiling my brain.
There's a couple of cycle shops here, but helmet selection is limited. So I ordered an HJC half helmet, the same brand as my three-quarter, on the internet. In the photo it looked much like the helmets a lot of motorcycle cops wear.
When it arrived today, I put it on and noticed two things. The first was that it was painfully tight, despite being the same size as my black helmet. The other is that it's very wide, so much so that it looks ridiculous, as though someone had cut a large watermelon in half, painted it white, and stuck it on my head. (I'm reminded of the line from Bob Dylan's "Leopardskin Pillbox Hat": "You know it balances on your head just like a mattress balances on a bottle of wine...").
So, I set out once again to look at helmets on the internet. Problem is, there's no way to gauge the width, height or anything else, as nobody shows helmets being worn. Then it hit me: if they showed models wearing the helmets, sales would go down, as helmets look clunky no matter how expensive.
Come to think of it, I've never seen an ad for Depends showing an elderly person wearing them, and probably for the same reason.
