For the people who know me, I wear glasses. I'm not gonna lie, glasses suck. I've been wearing them since junior year of high school, and after seven years of wearing glasses, I really envy people who are fortunate enough to have good eyesight and be able to have the luxury of not putting some foreign object on one's face on a daily basis. For those of you who are fortunate enough, give yourself a pat on the back for being born with good eyesight and maintaining it.
Alright, enough with being nice.
Yeah, I get it, it could be worse...right? I could have been born legally blind, develop eye cancer, (Is it called eye cancer? Seems logical enough, but when i develop a tumor on my toe I don't necessarily call it toe cancer...hmm), or be born blind altogether. Yes, I should be thankful that I don't fit under any of those conditions that I listed. Then again, how many times does one focus on people who are less fortunate to make one a more humble person? I could say, "Never". I'm a selfish bitch and I don't like having glasses.
Well, why don't you get contacts then?
Well, I tried them for about a month. My eyelids are just extremely strong or my fingers which try to hold them back are extremely weak. Plus I frequently nap, so I'd rather not have contacts in my eyes (plus there's some problem with your pupils f-ing up in the process). Also, I don't really like the idea of having a thin piece of plastic inside my eye socket; the thought just kinda grosses me out. People are only born with one set of eyes, I'm not going to risk losing my eyes for the mere convenience of keeping my contacts in during a nap.
I'm not as lucky as Kakashi, who gets a nice new eye with special non-human abilities. Sharingan go!
Why do I hate having glasses? Well according to my family history, I'm the first person in the family to develop eye problems at a young age. When I first told my parents I was having trouble seeing in class at school, it was like the dawn of the apocalypse. It's not like I wanted it; give me a break. My parents frequently remind me that it was the copious amount of time I spent playing my SNES and watching TV that caused my vision to go awry (Hey, I wanted to get through that Special World in Super Mario World). In retrospect, my eyes probably began getting weaker as I read more books since I began reading more for my honors English classes in high school. Damn you Orwell, Kierkegaard, Shakespeare, and you other classical authors.
I remember trying that damned Tubular level so many times. Uggh, my hand-eye coordination skills weren't that good at the young age of 7.
So why has this issue about glasses come up as of late? It's been seven years, and now you complain? Yeah, why not...I'll fill you in.
For the last 2+ years I've been wearing the same pair of glasses. They have been through a lot more than a normal pair of glasses should; they have been thrown around, stepped on, sometimes stayed on my face when I slept, so on and so forth. To say the least, all the pairs of glasses that I have worn through the years deserve a badge of honor. I can't say that I take very good care of my glasses; I'm pretty neglectful. Mentioned above, sometimes they're thrown, I often times leave them on the floor before I sleep and in the morning (while still fairly groggy), narrowly miss stepping on them (or sometimes stepping on them..whoops...my bad). Luckily the frames for my glasses have been the most malleable pieces of metal I have ever seen. I would bend, twist, and re-bend the frames back into place so they would fit properly on my face. Granted they would end up a little crooked with the nose pads moved around, but they ended up functional nevertheless.
About a week ago, during a typical unemployed morning, as I was in the process of waking up, I nonchalantly put on my glasses. As they were wrapping around my huge head, the right ear piece completely snapped off the hinge. Hmm, I guess all of that twisting and bending took its toll on the earpiece; it is only a thin piece of metal/plastic after all. After a careful analysis of my glasses, the earpiece screw hole ended up breaking--it wasn't going to be an easy fix...I fixed it with some superglue of course. Eh, I don't get to bend the right earpiece, but eh, no big deal.
For the next week or so I managed to wear my crooked and heavily abused glasses. I had to be a little more delicate with putting them on and such, but I wasn't going to exercise the option of buying new frames. If I wasn't such a cheap ass, I would have gladly gone to Costco and get myself a new pair; I'm so incredibly frugal with necessities. I guess not having a job makes me feel a little insecure with making extra purchases.
(Then again, I ended up picking up the Metal Gear Essentials pack along with Okami for PS2 recently from Amazon. Oh where are my priorities?)
Throughout the week my dad frequently suggested that I get some new frames, but I stubbornly refused getting them. In my head I kept repeating to myself, "You'll only get a new pair of glasses until you get a damn job...bitch!" Yeah, I sound pretty childish, but technically there wasn't much wrong with my glasses; I can still see perfectly fine through the current prescription, the lenses aren't that heavily scratched, and the glasses stay on my head. Isn't that all one really needs in a pair of glasses? I did technically fix them. Shoddy, yet fixed. It's functional, end of story.
But no it isn't the end quite yet. For whatever reason, I came to my senses and decided to just get a pair at my local optometrist at...Costco. Yeah, Costco. A lack of vision insurance (err, that sounds about right...vision insurance?) will do that to you. I got my previous pair of glasses from Costco, might as well get a new pair from there too; since they have me on their records and such. It'll be quick and painless.
Boy was I wrong.
With the intention of saving as much money as possible, I planned on only getting an exact replacement frame for my lenses. There was nothing wrong with the lenses; no reason to toss those out along with the frames. Seems as though I was mistaken with my assumption. Apparently vision prescriptions are treated the same as other medical prescriptions; they're only valid for a certain period of time and can only be utilized until its expiration date was what the Costco employee told me. I'm not exactly sure how long normal vision prescriptions are, but mine was only valid for one year; it had already been 2+ years since getting my last eye exam. I tried to reason with her and tell her that I wasn't going to have any of that. I told her that my vision didn't change at all in the last two years and I merely wanted a set frames--nothing more. Basically the only way I would be getting a new pair of glasses that day would be by taking an eye exam to renew my prescription...grr.
What I don't really understand is why it's so imperative for me to get another prescription for a new pair of glasses. I'm not legally blind or anything, I just have some mild nearsightedness along with a slight stigmatism, that's it. I can see that it's basically a convoluted process that was established to keep people from abusing their old prescriptions. Fair enough, but I as well as many others would simply like to save a little bit of money. I know my vision is perfectly okay with my current set of glasses. To be fair, they could potentially not be maximizing my vision, but I can attest that as long as I'm not blind like Mr. Magoo, then my vision is fine with whatever glasses/lenses that I may have.
I wonder how many people actually know who Mr. Magoo is...
A potentially simple/inexpensive trip to get a pair of new frames for my old lenses suddenly became an expensive trip for an unnecessary eye exam. Before anything, I had to schedule an appointment with Costco's in-house optometrist (yeah, sounds weird right...it wouldn't surprise me if Costco has an in-house brain surgeon, lawyer, engineer, etc). Luckily I was able to schedule an appointment the same day, but an hour later. Throughout my numerous shopping adventures at Costco, I have never spent THAT much time there. I'm an all-business type of shopper. Get what you need to get. Get out. There's no need for browsing. My browsing comprises looking at the video game bundles and eating/drinking the free samples.
After getting my appointment time penciled in, I was informed about the pricing for the eye exam as well as other costs. Of course the cost of the frames would be dependent on the ones I would eventually choose. I was able to find a decently priced pair for $40. Fair enough. The lenses would cost about ~$70 which I kind of found ridiculous since I didn't get any anti-glare/anti-scratch, transitions, bifocals, or any other specialized glasses--just simple glasses for my damned nearsighted-ness.
Fine, so it would be approximately ~$110. I was still fine with those costs until I heard how much the exam would be. It was $55 and and $10 to dilate my eyes (which supposedly will give a more accurate diagnosis of my eyes). If my memory serves me right, I never recalled having to pay an extra $10 to dilate my eyes. When were eye drops so expensive? Comparatively, it's the most expensive drug I've ever known. Obviously this optometrist is trying to make bank on pushing eye dilating. Afraid that my diagnosis would be inaccurate, I opted for the eye dilating---great. What frustrated the most was that the exam only lasted about 10 minutes, perhaps even less. Damn, I should've been an optometrist; it is extremely quick money.
During my quick eye exam, I happened to get a few questions about my eyes answered.
- My eyes are stable and probably won't change until I get significantly older.
- It's not exactly my fault my eyes are bad, I'm growing up in a time where one's eyes are being strained a lot by the plethora of tasks which require it. Otherwise, it could be bad genetics. (Oh damn my DNA.)
- Optometrists at Costco are making good as hell money charging $10 extra to dilate your eyes
So what have we learned today? My eyes suck, and will continue to suck until I get some Lasik eye surgery. Contacts will never be a viable option for me; they're just irritating. My purchasing habits are ridiculous. Super Mario World still rocked my socks 15 years ago and still does now. Last but not least, I'm not sure if anyone who knows about Naruto knows about Mr. Magoo and vice versa. Sigh.
