My Glasses Saga
I am wearing new glasses.
Four pairs of new glasses, to be exact.
Just not all at the same time.
*******
On a Monday morning, Josh leaned over to hug me while he was standing and I was sitting. The edge of his glasses hit the lens of my glasses and left a long, deep scratch.
I let my glasses prescription lapse during the pandemic, so the first step was getting an appointment to have an eye exam. Not so easy. They weren’t going to be able to see me for a month. I took an appointment for the end of April with the promise that they would put me on the waitlist for a cancellation. Probably because I was crying. Before I could log off the computer, an appointment popped up for that day. I jumped in the car and drove over immediately wearing my prescription sunglasses.
But that wasn’t the hard part. That was the super easy part, it turns out. Because all of our usual glasses places were taking between one week and three weeks to make glasses.
The first place only allowed me to look during the 20 minutes allowed for my appointment, and I could only try on five pairs. I could only ask to try on the pairs when I had chosen the five pairs I wanted to try. By the time I had chosen a second pair I wanted to try, I forgot where the first pair was located on the wall. I went with the first thing I tried on even though they were purple. Purple! But I was desperate for glasses.
Though I realized after I got home that the man never measured my pupils, and I spent from 2 AM to 4 AM concerned the glasses wouldn’t be properly aligned with my eyes. The man snarled at me over the phone the next day that the information was in my file, and he didn’t need to re-measure. Note to self: Always ask them to measure my pupils… anyway.
I found another place that promised they would make the glasses the same day if I could get there before five o’clock. We got there at 3:30 pm, but the time frame suddenly jumped to 24 hours because… shoulder shrug. The man talked me into trying progressives, something that filled me with dread between the hours (once again) of 2 AM and 4 AM as I worried that I would finally have a pair of glasses and they would make me dizzy.
This was a worry-ful month.
The end of the story is that I ended up with four pairs of glasses: The purple ones, which came in a week later because he put them in as a rush order (probably due to the whole pupil measuring situation). The progressives. The new prescription in my old sunglasses. And a second pair of distance-only glasses with my old frames once I realized the new progressives made me feel dizzy.
Here’s the thing: Humans can make glasses in an hour. There are so many things you can’t make at short notice, but glasses — except for unusual prescriptions — are not one of those things. And people cannot get by without glasses. The world needs to bring back the one-hour eyeglass places. Sloppy huggers depend on them.
6 comments
I am so sorry this happened to you. A few weeks ago in a bizarre turn of events, the side bow on my glasses was snapped by a falling case of Girl Scout cookies. I was not injured and the cookies were fine but my glasses were in trouble. I ended up putting on a back up pair I don’t love until my husband kindly super glued mine back together. Then I attempted to order a new pair which caused an insurance situation because the ones I broke aren’t a full year old. Then I could only try on glasses picked by the optician and of course mask was in place so that was also hard. When they finally came in they pinched my nose. So, so much. I had them adjusted 3x in 2 days and finally admitted defeat and ordered another pair. Which are the same frames I originally broke but in a *slightly different color, which is what I should have done in the beginning. All this to say – glasses shouldn’t be hard but they are and I really hope you like at least one of your pairs long term.
Greatest line to close the post! I am such a fan. I can relate to worrying about ordering replacement glasses, for my 2yo DD, years back. She tossed them off from her stroller at the state fair, during our one and only visit there. I love our optical shop staff who helped file a claim for damaged lenses. So we only had to pay for the frames — “somewhere at the fairground, with all that foot traffic, lies a pair of scratched lenses.”
Josh plus Mel = love! A good story down the road, even with the sleepless nights.
When I fell in a rocky cat park in Iceland, I broke my glasses. Fortunately I had a back up pair, and always carry them with me when I travel now.
The thing about progressives – they make you dizzy until they don’t. For me, it took several days to adjust, then when I did they felt so natural I didn’t realise it for hours! The key is not to give up, or you’ll never adjust. They’re so much better than swapping glasses.
PS. The purple ones sound cool!
I’ve always just ordered glasses through my optometrist. Less choice, perhaps, and maybe a little more expensive, but I trust him. (Old habits die hard — I grew up in small towns where the local optometrist was the only place you could get glasses!)
I think an extra pair of glasses is probably a good idea, and fun if you can afford it. I’ve broken a couple in recent years, and had to rely on my previous pair, where the vision wasn’t quite as good. I’m due for an optometrist visit soon… my current lenses are about 7 years old (frames are 3-4 years old — I broke them!), and I have computer glasses are a lot older than that. I like my glasses, but it’s probably time for new ones soon…
Gah! I usually get glasses thru my optometrist or Costco, so there’s always a wait. Luckily I always have a few backup older pairs. And when I went to an office I had to keep one in the car for the times I walked out wearing my computer glasses (and didn’t want to spend 5 min going back to get my regular glasses I could drive in). I tried progressives, and hard no. I almost hit a car trying to park. My eye dr said some people just can’t get used to them and I am one of them. So I have bifocals and computer glasses (and I just got computer bifocals). Ah, my younger days when I needed only single vision glasses.
Also “the cookies were fine” 😂 @Beth
Ugh, I’m sorry for the whole saga. Glasses are so fundamental when you need them. I end up saving my old pairs so that I have one copy of something that’s only slightly out of date.
Also, I did not realize that glasses could be made in one hour!