Four eyes

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Source: clker.com

Source: clker.com

Always loved shopping! For anything! Clothes, bedding, towels, shoes!

When I worked people dressed nicely so it was fun to shop for clothes.

That ended when I retired. I no longer have places to wear suits and dresses (except for wakes and funerals). People think I’m nuts if I express excitement when there’s a death. (Should I wear the basic black dress or maybe the double-breasted suit?)

But…there was always one thing I hated to shop for…eye glasses. Always.

The need to wear the glasses is relatively recent (last 15 years). Before that I wore contact lenses and loved them. Then two things happened. First I couldn’t read close up and I developed spider veins on my cornea that gave me an “it’s 5 o’clock somewhere” look.

I stopped wearing them. Eye correction surgery helped to a degree but I still need glasses for reading and astigmatism.

I don’t have a normal bridge. It’s crooked or something. I need lightweight frames and lenses. Even then the comfort comes and goes. It’s mostly gone by the end of the day.

Taking my glasses off in the evening is like removing my snug bra and letting the girls fly free (only my corneas don’t hit my knees). Doing both at the same time results in my body bouncing and yelling, “Free again! I’m free again!”

Dang it. We can go to the moon but we can’t make comfy glasses. What gives?

Overlooking the comfort, there is the “look.” I hate glasses. I had to wear them from puberty until I could afford contact lenses. I didn’t look like the models. The glasses spent a lot of time on the tip of my nose. (Not a good look.)

Then there was the style. I had cat’s eye frames way longer than anyone else. I absolutely refuse to even try that “retro” style today. Gross!

And the color. When I want burnished bronze or something like that, bright gold is in. When I want bright gold, plastic is in. By the way, on my bridge those plastic frames slide down faster than an Olympic skier!

Yosemite Sam

Yosemite Sam

And finally, the cost. Remember when they were $29? How did they go from $29 to over $600? (There must be gold in them thar frames!)

I bought a new pair last week. They don’t slide and I can see out of them. Mostly. Still getting the new eyewear headaches that happen for a week or so.

No one noticed. I guess that’s good but for that money I’d like at least one person to notice.

 

71 thoughts on “Four eyes”

  2. Whenever I go shopping for the frames I find really cute ones and then realize they are the most expensive ones on the shelves. I didn’t wear them as a child, and about 13 years ago with close and constant computer work the eyes started to go! Last time I bought a nice dark frame that looked really trendy, and I ended up just feeling self-conscious. I’m not the trendy type. I’m overdue for an eye appointment and I’ll be frame shopping again! 🙂

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    • My last pair was big dark Buddy Holly type frames. It was plastic without adjustable nose thingies and it didn’t work well. This pair is wire all around but doesn’t have the heavy look that plastic has. It’s easier to be trendy if you don’t have to wear them all the time. For that simple and comfy is best.

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  3. Kate … The last time I wore contact lenses I found that I also needed glasses for certain occasions. Then, when I discovered I could not see some things, I knew it was time for a change. I also need the lightweight eyeglass frames because the other type give me headaches.

    Good luck on your quests. 😉

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    • Sounds like I’m not alone. As I got older my eyes got dry for contacts too. Then I couldn’t read price tags (I have a hilarious story about buying a brooch that I thought was $18 but was $81 because I couldn’t read the tag). I started with store readers on dangly chains but that got old fast. It’s far easier to wear glasses all the time except that finding the comfortable ones are always a challenge. Progressives give me a headache when I read for a long time. My eye doc recommended standard bi-focals for reading (bigger reading area). At the end of the day, I’ll end up with all these specialty glasses (cha-ching, cha-ching) and you never know where they are (or they are never where you need them). They are like screwdrivers and hammers. They have feet.

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  4. I knew someone once who had the same problem – glasses always slipping to the end of their nose. They were one of those “can make a piece of furniture out of bits of string and broken bed springs” type of people, and they came up with their own solution to the slipping glasses debacle. It was odd, and quirky, but it worked for them, (and they were very proud of themselves for figuring out a solution). And the end result was phenomenal.

    You know those silicone toenail covers they make for cats? They put them on cat’s toenails, and then apply heat, and the silicone molds itself to the shape of the toenail. I’ve never seen it in action, and have only heard about it, but that’s what they used. Silicone cat toenail protectors, applied to the little pads that hold your glasses on your nose. She applied heat, and PRESTO, the silicone conformed to the shape of the little nose pads. Now the nose pads were rubberized, and didn’t slip anymore. She used hot pink. Her glasses frames were orange. I’ll be the first to admit that this approach isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but I had to give her props. She had a problem, and she found a solution. And her glasses were adorably cute. Rubberized nose pads and all. 🙂

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  5. Funny to read this now after just coming back from the eye guy who nicely tightens all my glasses that due to my big ole head, stretch and fall off my nose. I have distance, reading, computer and look how smart I look, glasses.
    As far as funerals go, I’m Italian, I could dress the corpse.

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  6. Whenever I see the “new” cats-eye glass trend, all I can think of is mother – and all those 50’s stylish gals. Knock on wood I’m still wearing readers (but the full time pair is coming probably soon.) Last time I took my daughter – the stylish person – to select a pair of readers that would not look old and I so wouldn’t embarrass her..and of course she went right for the cats-eyes….husband cracked up. I wear the old wire rims or some plastic ones at home (who doesn’t have a pair in every room?) and save the new ones for out of the house.
    Sigh. All those nice career clothes and suits. Always a bit nervous about looking so well dressed at funerals – but it’s either those or jeans.
    Enjoyed the post!

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  7. Still wearing my contacts but not as much. My contacts are set up with monovision but it is far from ideal. I have glasses too but wouldn’t wear them out and about… need new. CH just picked up cool new glasses last week. I don’t like messing with glasses and have been wearing glasses and contacts since 8th grade!

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  8. Kate don’t get me started on the glasses, my son won’t wear his because he thinks he looks like a nerd……so I buy the coolest, most expensive glasses, that even have drop down shades that go over the top, (clip on magnetised ones) he now only wears them with the shades on because that is cool……I give up! 500 dollars for a pair of sunglasses. You have my sympathy about the discomfort of wearing them.

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  9. I dread the yearly decision making process about my glasses ( which I need to see more than a foot in front of me.) Row upon row of classes and someone standing over my shoulder saying “they look good, oh they look good too, yes they look good.” Really!! every pair. Go serve someone else. And what is with the 2 paris for $199? Can I have one pair for half the price? I only have one face.

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    • I hate the “2 for” specials. I never buy two pair! It’s hard to see how they look without your glasses on. The place I go to will take a digital picture of you in each frame but of course it wasn’t working the day I was there.

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  10. My eyes are so bad I wear reading glasses over my contacts. I’m used to having horrible eyes. When you think what a handicap it is not to see, thank God we have something we can do. Either that or we’d be bumping into walls.

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    • Towards the end of my contact lens days I wore reading glasses too. I am very thankful we have options. 200 years ago I’d be feeling people up to see who they were (and that would end badly!).

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  11. Hate shopping, but love my glasses. Have worn them since I was 5 y.o. As for funerals, I find that in different parts of the country there are different dress codes, so it’s not always a dress-up event. Just saying. Be forewarned– or be labeled a show-off.

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    • Even here you will see jeans and yoga pants on the younger mourners. My generation will still put on the coat and tie in respect. (I draw the line at pantyhose!) However we have great lunch parties afterward. When one cousin died, I sat at the cousin table. Hadn’t seen most of them in decades. It was so ruckus that we got hairy eyeballs from our (very few) elders. Fortunately we had our own room at the restaurant. I started wearing glasses around 12 and always hated them. I have oily skin and they always slid down my face especially in sports.

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  12. I’m still clinging to my gas permeables – going on 35 years.
    So what if I am in denial as far as any need for surgery or glasses long term.
    Now I will mindfully delete this post.
    xo

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    • If I could still wear mine, I would. I loved them and didn’t have any problems wearing them. The soft ones on the other hand would fold over or I couldn’t pluck them out. Yuck! It was the dry eye and the red capillaries that ended that friendship. The land of Denial is a wonderful place. That’s why a lot of people linger there.

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  13. You can always dress up and be a Funeral Crasher like in the movie Wedding Crashers….or you can crash weddings. It’ll give you a whole new reason to shop again…:)

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  14. I am jealous. I desperately need new glasses. I am currently alternating between wearing my readers and the regular pair depending on what I need to do. I am spoiled by wearing progressive and transition lenses for my regular glasses, and I should have replaced them last year. Now I’m not willing to replace them until January after I reengage the vision insurance during the next open season. Good for you!

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    • Yeah, I know that January thing. I get mindful of all medical things this time of year. If my deductible isn’t met I try to push off until January. If it’s met I try to get it done before the end of the year. I love progressives and transitions which is what ups the cost. Lately though for the progressives I’ve noticed that the reading area isn’t big enough. My doc is recommending a pair of bi-focals (yes the kind with the puddle at the bottom) just for long term reading projects. Getting old stinks but I shouldn’t complain. I have a few friends with much more serious eye issues and cornea transplants which aren’t easy at all.

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      • I know. My problem is merely that I’ve delayed in getting my prescription updated, not anything more serious. Vision insurance is really just another way of budgeting. In a perfect financial world, I’d just pay straight out. But I like the idea of budgeting this expense, so I’ll put up with it a little longer.

        My wife wears bi-focals because she just can’t handle progressives. I guess the day will come when I can’t either. Getting old does stink!

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  15. OH, sounds kind of familiar. Ugh. The price is injury to insult, not the other way around. I have different glasses for reading, distance (both sun and for a dark theatre), and computer. The only ones I spend for new frames are sunglasses, which last me about 10 years (but I have to have 2 pair because when one is broken it becomes an EMERGENCY because of driving. Mostly my frames are old–big round, wireless, all kinds of funky stuff–bent and crooked, etc. Gosh, it’s embarrassing now that I think about it.

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  16. I’ve finally made peace with wearing glasses. I tried hard contacts (painful) and then soft contacts, which I ruined accidentally. After all that money down the drain I just quit fighting it. Kate, I agree, removing my glasses at the end of the day feels just as good as taking off my bra!

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  17. Andy has a terrible time with glasses and sunglasses. Like a lot of Asians, he has no bridge in his nose. Luckily, they now make an “Asian bridge” for certain styles.

    I laughed over your excitement over funeral clothes. Did you ever read Janet Evanovich’s “One for the Money” series? There’s a whole subplot involving funeral homes and Grandma Mazur.

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    • Maybe I should look into those. The ones I just bought are sitting pretty well but I usually have a lot of trouble with the bridge. (Maybe I have just a little Asian in me?)

      Yes on Grandma Mazur. I was thinking of her as I was writing it and the crazy outfits she would wear. There is a part of me that wants to be just like her in a few more years!

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  18. I hate wearing glasses tooand only them when I have to which is more and more often these days. Even more I hate shopping for them because of the price and the choices. None of them make me look good but it is always the expensive ones that help at all. I can relate to the funeral choices as I want to look decent out of respect. I cruise the local obits too and am sometimes disappointed when I don’t see anyone I know. I love to shop for most anything too but most days my attire is jeans and sandals.

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  19. I had lens implants in both eyes in 2004, one in May, the second in June. If I hadn’t done it, I might have flunked the vision test to renew my driver’s license, which was coming up in July. At the time, there was no multi-focus implant available. (Incidentally, Medicare covered the entire cost; I didn’t pay a dime.) So my choice was between replacing my prior, but unclouded-by- cataracts vision (which was near-sighted for everything except what was real close up — like a lover’s face when in loving mode) or else 20/20 for distances and needing glasses for non-distances. As someone who had worn glasses since the age of 11, I opted for 20/20 behind the wheel and at the movies, glasses for reading. What I got was 20/20 for driving and at the movies, glasses for just about everything else, including cooking, eating (if I want to see what’s on my plate) and cutting my toenails. But that’s not the point of this reply. The point is that 2004 was eleven years ago, and one’s eyes continue to change while the implants don’t. So that now I also need glasses for “middle distance” — meaning 20/20 isn’t 20/20 anymore. I wouldn’t be surprised if the $6000 multi-focus miracle lenses also have a life limited by the changes in the human eyes in which they’re implanted — if that’s any comfort for those who can’t see themselves springing for the $6000.

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    • My surgery was in 2005. They had just come out. I made the same choice you did but now, like you say, I find I need a “little” correction plus the reading prescription. I was also lucky as my health insurance covered the entire cost of regular implants. The multi-focal are very reasonable these days or so I hear.

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  20. I suffered terribly having to wear glasses when I was at school. I couldn’t wear hard contact lenses – too painful – and in those days (!!!), they didn’t make soft lenses for such high numbers as I needed. Great was my joy at the age of 22 when, thanks to technological advances, I was finally able to get soft contact lenses. After wearing soft lenses for many years, I started to have allergy problems with the liquids required for cleaning and storing them, so I was forced to return to glasses and save the contact lenses for special occasions like parties and concerts and going to the opera. A friend of mine had corrective surgery but I was terrified of the thought of the surgeon’s knife coming anywhere near my eyes. But then they invented laser surgery. I took my courage in both hands and had both eyes operated on. The surgeon had warned me that at my age, we couldn’t hope for optimal results and that I would probably still need glasses for reading.
    He was wrong! Although it wasn’t planned that way, I have one eye that’s better for reading and one eye that’s better for distance and with the two together, I don’t need glasses at all!
    That was nine years ago and I’ve never looked back. It cost what, at the time, seemed to me a small fortune (still does, in fact!) but I have no regrets. (Tfu, tfu, tfu, as we say…)

    I still don’t like shopping, however!

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  21. I never liked glasses either and I have worn glasses and contacts since I was eight but now that is changing. Cataract surgery is amazing. Your post is hilarious…nothing ho-hum in your world.

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  23. Is this my future, Kate? I’ve been wearing gas permeable contacts for years. I add cheaters to read and balance them on the tip of my nose. When I take out the contacts at night I switch to a pair of glasses I bought in 2009 (prescription is still good). I’m sure they’re out of style but I don’t care. If it comes to the point when I have to wear glasses full time I’ll update my look. BTW – I wore huge red plastic Sally Jesse Raphael glasses when I was in my early twenties. Why???

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  24. Today,I don’t mind wearing glasses. They actually give my eyes some definition, or so people tell me. Of course, they could be lying to me in order to avoid saying anything about my being a four-eyes. But, why would someone ever want to insult lovable old me? And I know how you feel, Kate, when it comes to cost. I walked in to get a pair of prescription glasses—one regular pair and another pair of sunglasses—under the impression that 2 pair would cost under $100—as advertised. I walked out having spent a little over $400! I walked out like a tootsie pop—otherwise known as a sucker. Hey…but I can see now—that I got took! :@)

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  25. I don’t mind wearing my windows, though it was a nuisance having to take them off to write a letter/read and put back on again to watch TV, it was like a yo yo attached to my head!
    Enter varifocals, and once I got used to them and stopped stepping off pavements that weren;t there or bumping into walls that were, I’ve had no problems. Hate the expense though (£185) as they don’t come in the cheap seats!

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  26. I hate that I have to wear glasses! I wore contacts for a long while but started to have issues reading with them on too. I tried inexpensive readers but I found it much easier to wear glasses and take them off to read than to wear contacts and have to put the readers on to read. I still try to pull my glasses off for photos. Yuck.

    “People think I’m nuts if I express excitement when there’s a death.” Too funny!

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