Here’s a quick bit of unsolicited advice: Tint your car windows.

For one thing, it looks cool. And in fact, it is cool. It will keep your car’s interior cooler. It also offers a bit of privacy inside the car. And at the same time, it will help protect your car’s interior from the ravages of UV rays.

Which brings me to the main reason you should get your car windows tinted as dark as state law allows: It will help protect you from the ravages of UV rays.

I’d always considered tinted windows a vanity thing. An affectation. Purely cosmetic. Or something pimps and other lowlifes do. But in fact it was my dermatologist who told me to do it. I’d gone to see him about the redness on my checks and the side of my neck, thinking it might be rosacea or something. Nope, he said, it’s sun damage, accrued over many years of exposure. And it’s worse on the left side because of exposure while driving (years of daily commuting, southbound in the morning, northbound in the afternoon).

Nuff said. The next car I bought had as-dark-as-was-legal tinted windows. They made a huge difference in my comfort during hot Oklahoma summers, they looked cool as hell on my dark green coupe, and people could not as easily examine the contents of my car when it was parked somewhere.

Seventeen years later, I’m still driving that car. The tint still looks great, except for the one scratch on the driver’s side window, the result of crawling out of a barely open door in a very tight parking space — with a jagged (but very pretty) little pin on the lapel of my coat.

If your car doesn’t have tinted windows, think seriously about getting them. It’s an investment in your good health. Do, however, go to a reputable shop and get a high quality job done with a top-of-the-line film like 3M. You don’t want the film bubbling later, or fading to that awful purplish color.