Ahhh, my eyes! That thing cut me!

Long time readers may recall my previous difficulties in obtaining and retaining eyeglasses. As I have detailed before, at only one point in my glasses-wearing career have I been able to both order and receive frames and new lenses in less than two weeks, and often I've had to wait far longer. No matter what kind of frames I need, the two week waiting period has become standard and I no longer expect anything less. However, I suspect that it is directly because of my acceptance of this inconvenience that the universe has seen fit to throw additional wrenches into the works just to increase my vision-related-irritation.

Two weeks ago I went in for my annual eye exam. Wasn't having trouble with my vision, but just thought it was time to get it done, particularly since my current pair of glasses have become pretty scratched up and the finish on their two-year-old frames is starting to chip. Had `em examined, they'd changed ever so slightly, and, while my eyes were dilating, I went out to choose some new frames. I decided to stick with the Silhouette frame brand, as I like the rimless glasses look. This time, though, I decided to choose ones with thicker, darker temples. In fact, I found a pair that fit even better than my current pair of glasses. Turns out their lenses were a third of an inch wider than my current lenses, allowing the temples to rest even that much further from the sides of my head, which in turn caused them not to pinch the sides of my fat face. Who knew? Sign me up, I told them.

So I ordered new frames with the same lens shape as my old ones, only wider. They said it would probably take two weeks.

Oh, no, I thought, there's no probably about it. It will take two weeks.
And two weeks passed.

On Friday I phoned the optometrist to see if they had arrived, for I had not yet received a call. Yep, they had just come in and I could pop down and pick them up.

I waited at their fitting desk for a few minutes while the fitting tech (not the semi-evil Liz, of tales past, although she was at the front desk, leading me to suspect that her off-putting manner and inattention to detail might have earned her a demotion from the frame technician side) finished wiping the new pair up. I was afraid that they wouldn't look as cool as I recalled them being. I didn't trust my blurry, dilated memory. But they looked as cool as I'd hoped and fit superbly. Only... I couldn't quite see clearly through the right eye of them. I looked across the room at a framed print with writing on it and held my hand in front of the left eye. Yep. Blurry.

"Um, I hate to say this, but the right eye of these is blurry."

The tech seemed flustered at this. "What eye?" she asked.

"The right."

She checked my records and compared them to my previous records then said it looked like my right eye was listed as somehow having better vision than from previous years.

"That's my bad eye," I said.

Again, she seemed confused and continued to consult records on her computer. Finally she asked if she could take the new pair of glasses back and test them in a device that could measure their power. She returned a few minutes later and was very apologetic, but said it appeared that the lab had sent the wrong lens. Normally, she explained, she would be able to let me take the glasses and just pop the replacement lens in when it arrived. But because these were drill-mounted, she had to have them back for just three or four days. I was disappointed, because I really liked how they looked, but I couldn't get angry about it. For, you see, I have now come to accept that it is both my lot in life to never receive glasses in under two weeks, and my lot that there will always be additional complications that will assure that I don't receive them for at least an additional week. And, really, unless they have some sort of emergency WE SCREWED UP rush service back at the lab, I'm going to assume the 3 or 4 days they said really means two weeks anyway, so this time out it's likely a total of four.

Guess we'll see in a few.

TFTLM: Got Them Soul Coughing Video Game Addict Blues (Part 4)

Before the wife finished with the old company, I decided to take what advantage I had left of our job insurance and get my eyes checked. So on a Tuesday in August, I went for my eye exam at the same place I once swore I'd never set foot in again. The only reason I was going back on my vow and allowing my foot to land upon their floor again was because that office had done my wife a good turn a couple months back by seeing her after hours and with no appointment after a different optometrist flaked on the appointment my wife had made with her. Such good turns should be rewarded, I figured, so I gave them a second chance. And for my second chance, they did me a good turn.

The exam went well, I was seen quickly, initial testing done, eyes were dilated and while that was kicking in I was sent up to browse frames. I'd already decided that I would just stick with my current drill-mount rimless frames, as they've held up amazingly well despite repeated dog attacks. I expected the lady in the frames section (a different lady than Liz, though she's still around), to give me a hard sell on a new pair, but after asking me to put my regular frames back on my head, she agreed that they were the right style for my face and looked good, so there was no need for any change. Sweet. Only after I was ushered back into the chair did problems occur--not on the part of the office staff, but on the part of my eyes.

I began to suspect something might be amiss when the doctor spent a good five minutes examining the interior of my eyes. When he finished, he looked a bit concerned and asked if I'd had any problems with high blood pressure.

"Not that I know of," I said.

"Have you had your cholesterol checked recently?" he asked.

"No."

"Hmm," he said. He went on to explain that while there might not be a huge cause for worry just yet, there had been some definite change in the vessels within my eyes in the past year of the kind that wouldn't normally occur in a healthy individual. Arterial venous nicking, it's called. He recommended I see a doctor.

Now, I'll be first to admit that I've not exactly been in fantastic shape in the past year. I exercise every day, whether it's going to the gym or walking the dogs through our hillyass neighborhood, but my exercise regimen could not be described as rigorous. I can still make it up our gravity hill driveway with no breathing problems at all, but I don't spend a great deal of time on intense cardio otherwise.

So in I went to see Dr. Ralph, my wife's partner at her old clinic. Blood was tested and the results tallied. Not only did I have extremely high cholesterol, but it had tag-teamed with high blood pressure to put me in a very sorry state. I was instantly insulted that my own body had turned against me. I was also dead set against taking medication for it, because it was my firm believe that I could tackle the problem by adjusting my diet. The way I saw it, I'd practically been existing on bacon and cheese and bacon-wrapped cheese for months. Surely if I dropped red meat, pork and dairy from my diet, everything would even back out and then I could reintroduce my favorites slowly. I mentioned this plan to Dr. Ralph and he agreed that it was solid enough, but suggested we try me out on a daily intake of 5 mg of Crestor as a backup and try and lose some weight. According to him, for my height I was ideally supposed to weigh 165. I explained that I hadn't weighed that since probably the 8th grade and that even at my thinnest in college I had only gotten down to 175 before falling off the cheese wagon. I haven't seen the underside of 200 since then, though I came within sight of it a couple of times. But if I put my mind to it, I could stick to a dietary program with little problem. He told me to do that and if the blood pressure didn't come down some, he'd put me on lisinopril to help out. If everything came down with Crestor and diet, we could talk about ditching meds altogether. His point to me was that these conditions were likely inherited, as evidenced by my Papaw, who was thinner than Kate Beckinsale and had 3 heart attacks before one finally got the upper hand on him. For folks who had genetics going against them, AND were fatasses like myself, drugs such as Crestor were tools to even the odds. This made sense, so grudgingly I agreed.

(TO BE CONTINUED...)

SpecsWar `09 Part III

I lost my Silhouettes in the ocean because I was dumb enough to go into the ocean with them. See, I'd neglected to bring my Chesterfields (which I still possessed, pending the arrival of my new shades) but wasn't keen on wearing my $20 pair of contacts into the water for fear of losing them, so instead I wore my expensive pair of Silhouettes in. (I didn't know the exact cost at that point because I hadn't paid attention to that detail.) Yes, despite my obvious history of losing far sturdier and heavier glasses in the ocean, I once again paraded out in my light fluffy, nearly invisible Silhouettes intent on watery fun. After all, I had no intention of getting my head wet, right?

Mere moments after my nephew Kolby asked why I'd worn my glasses into the ocean, I was smashed about the head by a very slight wave, felt the glasses fall forward and they were gone. I have great reflexes, but they were gone before I could even fumble for them. I dove under water to search for them, but quickly discovered that the major trouble in seeing nearly invisible, rimless glasses under water is that it's very difficult due to them being nearly invisible and rimless. Also, it's hard to see anything clearly WITHOUT YOUR GLASSES!

Embarrassed, dejected, and humiliated at my own hand, I stalked out of the water and, soon after, stalked from the beach. The typical reaction our family had upon hearing what I'd done was to say, "AGAIN?!"

I put in my contacts and drowned my sorrows in Yuengling.

Jump ahead to our return home. On the answering machine was a message from Liz alerting me to the fact that my sunglasses had still not arrived because the company had pushed back the release date to mid July.

Well I'll fix them, I thought. I'll just cancel the damned order and have Liz fire me up some new Silhouettes as my second pair. And this I did. In person. To Liz herself. I hoped that my very presence would serve as a dare to say no or provide any more hassle.

Liz seemed okay with canceling the original sunglasses order and applying the money I'd already paid there to the new order of some Silhouettes. Then she told me the difference I would need to cover, which was to the tune of $260. I nearly shat.

"Wait. How much did the Silhouettes originally cost?" I asked, for until that moment, I only thought I knew a ballpark.

She consulted her notes, then decided that even though they'd had a price increase recently she would generously go ahead and give them to me at the original price I'd paid for the first pair, so I'd now owe $230.

"That's nice," I said, "but how much did they cost?"

"With lenses and frames and before insurance, it was $390" she said.

This time I nearly threw up. I was so stunned I barely caught Liz telling me she was going to give me a special 15 percent discount on the frames. Before I left, I asked if I could buy another pair of the Air Optix Aquas, as mine are past their official expiration date by a month.

"Did you need a trial pair or did you want to buy a box?" Liz asked. I asked how much a box was. Turned out $70 per eye with a two box minimum, making a six month supply.

"Gimme a trial pair," I said.

"We no longer carry trial pairs in those," Liz corrected.

"But you sold me a trial pair when I bought the ones I'm wearing right now," I said, my s.

"We've since... made new policies," she said.

"Then nevermind," I said.

When I was retelling this to my wife at lunch, she pointed out an obvious flaw which was that Liz's offer of 15 percent off should have been 50 percent off, as per the rules of the original special.

I blinked. "Wait. Yeah. They are." Or did I mishear "fifty" as "fifteen"? It's a common error. I called Liz back and learned that she had indeed said fifteen.

"But isn't my second pair supposed to be half off?" I said.

"Well, that's what the special is, but you have to buy a pair of glasses at normal price before you can get the second pair half off."

I felt my sickeningly sweet exterior slipping at the edges. "But I did buy a pair of glasses at normal price," I pointed out. They're washed up in Wilmington, granted, but I did buy them.

"Um... yes," she said cautiously. "But in a case where you're upgrading to a more expensive frame," she began again.

"I have already purchased the exact same pair of glasses at full price," I said, still very sweet.

Liz became kind of flustered at this point and said she didn't have the authority to make any decisions, but could consult with the doctor and call me back.

Adopting an even sweeter tone of voice, I said, "And would you please inform the doctor of the two months I've been waiting for my original second pair of glasses?"

Yes, Liz agreed, she would. I later received a message from her saying that she had decided to go ahead and give me the second pair at half off. After my credit was applied I would only owe $97.

I felt like I'd won a small victory, but for the fact that it will now take two weeks for them to arrive, with likely interference by the July 4th holiday and I'm scheduled to leave town for a week by July 3. At this point, I plan to set foot in Liz's place of business only one more time and then never EVER again. I may even tell her that.

(TO BE CONTINUED...)

SpecsWar `09 Part II

(My apologies for the lateness of this entry. We took the niece to D.C. starting last Saturday and I forgot to set this thing to automatic posting.)

Okay, so my frames didn't actually explode so much as come apart in multiple places very quickly. First one of the double mounting bolts of the left temple broke, causing the lens to pivot on the remaining bolt. I super-glued that one. Then, on the very day I had scheduled my most recent eye exam, two months back, the nose-bar snapped, as did my glue job on the temple, causing everything to fall apart. As I said, it was a nice coincidence that I was already having my eyes checked, but it meant either being blind for two weeks or that I'd need to get some contacts to tide me over.

It had been nearly ten years since I'd last worn contacts, having lost my final pair of Acuvues to the ocean the summer after losing my glasses to it. (Are you sensing a pattern, yet?) Fortunately the local Borderland optometrist I'd chosen said they could roll with this new request easily and that great strides had been made in contacts for people with astigmatism in the last decade. They hooked me up with a trial pair of Air Optix Aquas, then the optical technician--let's call her Liz--helped me pick out some more rimless frames. The only brand they carried was Silhouette, which were a bit pricier than I liked, but I figured the insurance would take care of most of it. (Wrong.) And because the Silhouette frames didn't come with clip on shades, as my previous brand of rimless frames did (or, rather, you could buy some as extras, but they were nearly as expensive as a pair of frames themselves), I decided to take advantage of a buy one get one half off sale they were having and order some prescription sunglasses to boot. The only ones I really thought looked decent in the store, though, were some Chesterfields, and then only just barely. In retrospect, I shouldn't have bothered ordering frames I wasn't 100 percent satisfied with, but especially these. The Chesterfields have a big clunky CHESTERFIELD logo embedded in both temples and I must not have noticed it right off because I pretty much hate logos on clothing and glasses as a rule. As it turns out, though, my saving grace was found with those very logo-embossed temples.

Remember the bit about how I always tell optical technicians to order the longest temples possible? Well, true to form, I'd shown Liz how the temples in the Chesterfields were woefully too short and noted that she would need to order the longest they had for my pair. She said she wasn't sure they carried ones that were longer, but would call them up to ask and then phone me if there were any problems. She said if I didn't hear from her, expect them to be correct and in hand within a week.

A week later, Liz called to say my Chesterfields had arrived. Can you guess how short the temples were? Oh, very, I assure you. It was exactly as if Liz had taken the display frames I'd told her were too short and just put lenses in them anyway. (Which is what she'd done.) But I didn't realize this until I'd returned home with them, because there was no point in wearing them home as I'd driven over wearing my contacts. I phoned Liz up and had to leave a message regarding the temples of inadequate length. She must have checked the notes in my file at some point and saw her own notation to order longer ones, for she was very accommodating when next we spoke. Turned out Chesterfield didn't make longer temples, which we would have known had she called them like she said.

I came in to pick out new frames and found some nice ones before long. They were some display frames Liz had just received and she said I could have them in a week. Meanwhile my Silhouettes came in and were wonderful to behold and with temples of the correct length.

Two weeks later, I phoned to ask about my promised sunglasses. Liz explained that the frames and lenses had arrived but that a screw was stuck in the frames and she couldn't release them to me in that condition so she'd reordered the frames. She should have them by the end of the week.

The following Monday I phoned again. Still delayed, she'd let me know.

Another week passed and I phoned again. Again, we were looking at some delays. I'd be the first to hear any news.

So, after a full month of waiting had gone by I was pissed off. Actually, I was pissed off long before that, but I was nearly willing to alert Liz to my level of pissed-offedness. Until that point I had been sickeningly sweet to her in all our interactions. I played phone tag with Liz for a day before she called back. When she did it was to say that my frames were not in, they hadn't technically even been released to the public and wouldn't be until June 16. I could either wait, pick out some new ones or get a refund. At this point, barely two weeks away from June 16, I decided I'd invested too much time to give up, so I opted to wait.

On June 16 I received no word from Liz. That evening, we left for the beach, during which I lost my Silhouettes in the drink.

(TO BE CONTINUED...)

SpecsWar `09 Part I

I've worn glasses for my vision since around the 9th grade. In the time I've had to wear them, I can count on one finger the number of times I've both ordered glasses and received them within a reasonable period of time. Now, I realize I am not alone in this, as there is a standard waiting period of at least a week for most orders. In my case, however, it's usually two weeks, though sometimes longer. There are also often accompanying complications with new glasses, such as the fact that my ears are slightly further back on my head than the average person, necessitating the longest temples money can buy. Most decent optical technicians figure this out on their own and order accordingly, but due to the ones who are not so observant, I make it a point to tell them in advance. On one occasion my warnings went unheeded resulting in glasses arriving equipped with temples that would scarcely fit over the ears of an eight-year-old. And on that point, I am not exaggerating.

"Well, do you want to go ahead and wear them until the new temples arrive?" they asked. I then attempted to do so just to demonstrate to them how absurd it was to even suggest it. They had to send them back and cost me another week's worth of waiting.

So it takes me a long time to get my glasses. Well, except for that one time...

It was around ten years ago when I lost my glasses in the ocean while vacationing with my then girlfriend (now wife) at Holden Beach. At the time my glasses were wire frame and had temples that ended in old-fashioned wire cables, the kind that hook around the ear and prevent them from slipping off. I was operating, falsely, under the impression that the cables also made them wave-proof. Soon enough, they were ripped from my noggin by a rogue wave and were never seen by me again. It was pretty humiliating, what with my newly met future brother and sister-in-law in attendance (the parents of the very niece we're enjoying a visit from this week), but I chalked it up to a lesson learned. I resolved forever more never to set foot in the ocean wearing specs unless they were secured to my head with one of those rubber floaty things designed to prevent them from sinking away should they become dislodged.

Being a Friday, the local optometrist in Supply was still open, but only until 3p, so I had my then girlfriend (now wife) drive me over for an emergency consultation and--I hoped--some specs. Considering my practically still-dripping swim trunks, it was pretty obvious why I was there when I walked through the door, squinting. The staff looked up at me and said the polite equivalent of, "Lost yer glasses in the drink, eh?"

Even though it had been something on the order of three years since my last eye exam, the doc at Beach Opti agreed to go ahead and sell me some glasses based on my prescription from the last exam, which they had to phone to get. Better still, he said if I was able to find some frames in the store they could have me ready to go in a couple of hours provided I promised to go have my eyes examined immediately upon my return home. I found frames and true to his word the doc handed me a new pair of glasses in record time. (My promise to have my eyes examined took another couple of years to get around to, but for the record my eyes had not changed one whit in the interim, which means not one whit from five years earlier.)

Jump ahead to 2005 or so. I finally decide it's time to get new frames and ditch the beach-emergency, gun-metal-colored frames for some sleek rimless ones. I then got my eyes examined and headed to the Wal-Mart optical center to pick out some frames. I expected a two week wait, but they informed me it would actually take a month because they had to be sent away to a lab for assembly. I didn't want to wait a month, but I really liked the frames so I agreed. Finally, a month and a day later, they arrived and I rushed down to pick them up only to find that some genius at the lab royally effed up the mounting of the nose bar to the point where it was not mounted flat across between the lenses. The staff at the Wal-Mart optical center argued with me that this was not actually the case and that such rimless glasses often appear crooked to the naked eye. They actually said that. Then I laid the glasses flat across the surface of their counter and pointed out to them how no parallel lines were formed between the counter and the nose bar. They had no ground to stand on after that, other than to say it was the lab's fault and not theirs. They offered to send them in to be redone, but I'd have to wait another month. I opted for a refund, instead.

I eventually found rimless frames at a more reputable optical center and stuck with those until two months back when my most recent pair exploded.

(TO BE CONTINUED...)

Vacations, and coming back there from

Wow.

Been a while since I've posted. I have the perfect excuse, though: vacation.

Yesirree, last week the wife and I drove down to see her family in Holden Beach and there we stayed, gorging ourselves on the flounder that my father-in-law caught and my moms-in-law fried up, basking in the 6 p.m. beach time sun (we no longer have patience for beaches any earlier than about 5p) and occasionally heading out on the ocean and waterway with Pa on his new cabin-boat. It's long been his dream to purchase such a craft and head out to fish whenever he wants and now that dream has come to pass. I didn't catch anything and, instead, lost something very expensive in the form of my new eye glasses which were knocked from my face by a less than rogue wave and may wash up somewhere near Myrtle beach one day. If you find them, lemme know.

This week, we're back in Borderland, but with an added cast member: our 10-year-old niece Kayley, who is staying with us for a couple of weeks. We plan to see the sights around here this week (all two of them) and then head to D.C. next week for some camping and monument/museum touring. It's proven to be a mild adventure, as the wife is back at work this week leaving me to entertain the kid during the day. So far it's not been much of a problem, but the week is still young.

In the meantime, I'm wearing my contact lenses while I wait for yet another pair of glasses to arrive. The story behind my battle with a local optometrist to achieve this, however, is a fun one which I shall shortly tell...