Seeing Red

I need a new pair of glasses badly. I've had my current pair for six years, so the lenses are scratched and the finish (originally midnight blue) has worn off much of the metal, leaving them looking like the eyewear equivalent of an '86 Accord that's been parked outside for the past twenty winters. Also, I have no backup pair, so I'm hoping to solve that, and make my current pair my backup pair.

Now, I'm not one of the folks who can just cruise over to For Eyes or one of those other places that advertises on TV and pick up the "two pairs for $99" special. That's mainly because I have a pretty heavy-duty prescription, and in order to avoid the coke-bottle look, I need what are called high-index lenses, which cost somewhat more than the standard plastic lenses that come in the promo-package glasses. If you want the anti-reflective coating, which is helpful if you have to sit under fluorescent lights all day, that costs extra too.

Having been to quite a few of these places recently to browse frames, I can say that none of them have anything I'm interested in wearing on my face. Besides my strong prescription, I have a narrow head for an adult male, and (in case you hadn't picked up on this by now) I'm wicked fussy about pretty much everything. The dominant style at every place I've visited is wide, rectangular frames with a very short top-to-bottom lens measurement, which is precisely the worst-looking style of eyeglass frame for my face. I do best in the roundish realm, and round is out right now, and has been for a while.

There's a place near work that isn't part of a chain, so I popped in there just out of curiosity. I found a nice-looking pair of round frames. They happened to be a designer brand, but they were also the right size and color, with no fussy trim and no logos, so I showed them my prescription and asked them what the total cost would be. The guy looked at my prescription, did some scribbling, punched at a calculator, and said, "Seven hundred."

Seven hundred dollars. SEVEN. HUNDRED. DOLLARS. For a pair of eyeglasses? My new computer cost less than that, and I got a free printer with it, a printer that also scans and copies, and probably makes toast too. Not wanting to look like a clueless bumpkin, I kept calm and didn't change my facial expression. I asked, "How much are just the frames?" "Two seventy-five." Oooo-kay then, gotta be getting back to my office, thanks for your time.

This makes me wonder how the cheapie places do it. I'm sure they are using cheap frames that are no doubt made in China (the higher-end brands tend to be made in Italy), but even so, one place charges a hundred bucks for two complete pairs of glasses, and another place charges fourteen times as much, so what does that mean in terms of lens quality? Eyeglasses are kind of crucial to a lot of people, so what happens when you spend the least possible amount of money on them? That worries me.

None of this has helped me get new glasses, of course. So I'm considering other options. I bought a pair of new, Italian-made designer frames on eBay for a mere $30. If I like how they look on me, I'll have lenses made for them. If I don't, I'm thinking about getting glasses made through the web site FramesDirect. They have a great selection, and I've found exactly what I want; the only drawback is that I can't see and try on the frames first. But I may have to trust in the measurements and photos; the alternative is to call every optician in town to see if they carry the frame style I want.