Choosing Spectacles - a nightmare

I went to the Optician today. I nearly broke my specs at Easter and decided a second pair would be a good idea before I managed to completely wreck them. If I had managed it the alternatives would have been: Old dark Polaroid prescription sunglasses or disposable contacts that are great to wear but don’t fully correct my vision. This meant a trip to the optician to get a second pair.

Its been 4 years since the last test, and a new Optometrist, so started with the basics.  With my glasses off she asked me to “Read the chart as far as you can”. I replied “I can’t even tell it is a chart!”. Looking at my ‘script that was probably expected but then with specs on she asked me to “read the bottom line” if I could. I could see the letters but about halfway along mixed them up – I said, “Can I try again? I can see them fine but had a dyslexic* moment and mucked up the order”. She laughed, and edged closer to the door…

The rest of the examination, complete with that Glaucoma test which always makes you leap when they fire a puff of air into your eye, was fine. Time for the worst part; I had to select a new frame.

Choosing a frame is amongst the worst retail experience for me. Its no fault of the Optometrist, it’s entirely my problem. Some consider spec frames a fashion statement or consider getting “the right frame” is worthy of lengthy investigation and many “fittings”. I consider the frame is a device to hold two lenses in about the correct position. My criteria:

• Light which means thin.
• Metal so they bend rather than break.
• Not shiny bright finish
• Not big (lens shape); Part fashion I guess but also because with my ‘script Big = Thick lens = Heavy

That reduced the selection from about 5,000 to 4,500 similar frames. I even tried to take the easiest option, “can I have same style again?”, but they don't make that model anymore. Even more tragic, it was the staff at the Optometrists that “chose” that frame for me. The next easiest option was “something similar” and that’s what I got. The first “something similar” offered as it fulfilled all my criteria.

Pitiful I know but it’s just not a priority for me. Odd thing is I can happily spend hours deciding about other purchases – computers, software, bicycle stuff, DVD’s, CD’s…

* Off topic: Why is “dyslexic” so hard to spell, perhaps I am? Why did they decide on “Lisp” choosing a word with an “sp” in it, the worst lithping letters, and “Stutter” with “st” and “tt”, the wors’s’s’s’t st’st’stuter’ter’tering letters, cruelty?