Day 53 - A Side Perk

As some of you may remember, my glasses were one of the casualties in the Month of Not Buying Anything New, and that getting them fixed was one of my first priorities on our first day of spending. This is what they looked like after they were "fixed:"

Normally I wear contact lenses, so with all the issues of Andy's employment and the economy slowing down enough to severely curtail my income, I thought I could live with these for the hour or two a day that I actually wear glasses. I did last for several months, but with the 90 day experiment looming, I decided enough was enough and decided that it was time to get glasses that would actually stay on my face. Sometimes I can use a little "shove" to do things I really don't want to be bothered with--so I thought, this was actually a good thing that a looming spending ban was going to force me to finally replace them. I just couldn't face another 90 days of these glasses.

When I bought the last pair of glasses, the process was pretty much the same as it was when I was a kid--trying on frames, giving them the prescription, then going back for a brief fitting. That was about 7 years ago. Now, like everything else in America, we've made it really complicated. now the glasses not only need to fit my face, they have to measure the exact spot my pupils will actually be looking through when I wear them. Then they asked if I wanted to see "well" or "really, REALLY well." Having pretty dreadful vision on my own, seeing really, REALLY well sounded fabulous. Thrilled at the prospect of great vision--without, of course, having any sense of having had poor vision with glasses, but evidently being a sucker of the highest order--I opted for the special coating that would potentially give me x-ray vision.

A week later, I went back and picked up these:

Did the special coating help me see better? Depends. As I wear gas permeable contacts, my eyes adjust a little going between glasses and contacts which has always been noticeable enough that I won't drive while wearing glasses, but it really was a pretty minimal change. Now when I take out my contacts and put the new glasses on, I spend about 30 minutes in the world of Salvadore Dali. Every evening there's a little span of time when we have curved walls, the floor is 7 feet below me, and Andy looks as wide as he is tall. Then everything is fine, but I can't decide if my vision is actually better at that point or if I am just so relieved to leave Funhouse Mirror Land that it feels like my vision is suddenly fabulous.

What the special coating does do, however, is attract dirt, smudges, fingerprints, and smears--none of which can be effectively removed except with the aid of the little bottle of cleaner that they gave me. Initially I was hoping that the smears would at least mitigate the Surrealism effect, but it doesn't do that either--I still have curved walls, invisible stilts, and a perfectly round husband BUT there's now a space-ship zooming around in the picture.

At this rate, I'll not only be ready when I'm old enough to need bifocals, they might be a relief!