Friday, October 22, 2010

the payoff postponed...

so today . . . was mostly consumed dealing with the aftermath of yesterday's "incident..."

my elbow hurts. my knee hurts. my glasses are crooked. my feet are cold.

there's not a lot i can do about most of that, but after yesterday's ordeal we decided new glasses were on the agenda for today. as usual, nothing is ever as easy as i think it will be...

i had to go to work this morning, so rollie checked on our vision insurance coverage, and found that somehow we have two plans. neither plan is all that great. if we could put the two of them together, we might actually end up with a good pair of corrective eye wear at a reasonable price. but of course, we can't use them together.

which really didn't matter anyway, because if we used our insurance i was going to have to wait at least two weeks for the new glasses to arrive. and although rollie managed to shove the temple piece back onto the pin so that i could wear them temporarily, my glasses keep trying to slide off my face whenever i move. i'm really not excited about having to put up with that for two more weeks. so the only thing i could think of was to go to lens crafter's and get a pair of one hour glasses.

but first i needed an eye exam. and for that, i did have to use my insurance. i was fortunate enough to get an appointment right after lunch. i arrived a little early and foolishly began to look at frames. i say foolishly, because i was not going to buy glasses there today--i was going to lens crafter's to get one hour glasses. remember?

but while i was waiting, i thought maybe it would be good to just randomly choose a pair, and get a price on the lenses--you know, for comparison when i went to lens crafter's. but the cute little optician was not going to go for that. instead, she tried to help me find something i liked.

(did i mention i was alone? with no second opinion?? i didn't know how long i would be, so i had left rollie at rubio's with his kindle and refillable soda. and diandra was busy today. so there i was, alone with my low sales resistance, and the optician.)

i finally chose six or seven frames that i thought were ok. i tried them on, but nothing miraculous happened when i looked in the mirror. i casually mentioned that they all sort of looked the same, and that i was really hoping to find something with some jewels... at this, the optician's eyes lit up! she quickly went to the LOCKED GLASS CASE and came back with a pair of frames. they happened to be the same glasses she was wearing. (it has been my experience that opticians generally wear the most expensive glasses in the store. i'm still pretty sure that is true.)

i made a huge mistake and put the glasses on my face. and of course, the angels sang...

shoot!

i could no longer see any other pair of frames in the store. everything else disappeared. my eyes were glued to this new frame. i was afraid to ask how much they were. but then i decided it was ok, because i wasn't going to buy them today anyway--i was going to lens crafter's to get one hour glasses. she went to work figuring out how much these beautiful, sparkly glasses would cost after the pittance my insurance company was going to kick in, and gave me the total.

i just about had a heart attack.

she must have sensed that my knees were about to buckle, because she quickly said, "but i'm sure we can get you approved for credit, and then you can take 18 months to pay for them. that way they aren't very expensive at all!" yeah, and i will have a whole six months after they are paid for before it is time for me to get another pair...

and btw, they cost just as much whether i pay for them all at once or in 18 monthly installments...

i took some deep breaths, paid my $25 for the exam, said i would think about it, and escaped back to rubio's and my original plan. and lens crafters...

i kind of knew what to expect from lens crafter's. i had just been there with diandra when she was on the quest for the perfect corrective eyewear. it seemed like when i went with her, i saw lots of frames i liked. today it didn't seem to me like they had much to choose from, but i wanted glasses right now, so i decided i just needed to choose a pair and be done with it.

and then i experienced the defining moment of the day. i knew they could make single vision lenses in an hour, but i wasn't sure about progressive lenses. so i asked the optician if i could get progressive lenses in an hour, and she said yes! unless i wanted the anti-reflective coating on them--then it would take a week to ten days...

what?!?!? how could that be??? all their advertising is about getting your glasses in an hour. and i know when diandra got hers, they had that coating on them. so why can you get the anti-reflective coating on single vision glasses in an hour, but not progressives???

now i was bummed. i was not going to be wearing new glasses today. i was not even going to be wearing new glasses by this time next week! i was going to have to wait.

(i hate waiting--especially for something new. when i order something from shopping tv, i start checking the mail for it two days later--even though i know it is going to take at least a week to get here...)

so we came home. rollie tried to get me to go out look at some more frames. he wanted me to find something i loved. today. but the problem turned out to be that i had already found something i loved--it was just way more than i thought we should spend for glasses.

we watched some tv. i was mindlessly clicking around on my computer. i started looking for glasses online. i uploaded a picture of my face so i could "try" some glasses on. i kept clicking around from site to site, with no particular agenda.

and then, there they were... the horribly expensive, beautifully sparkly glasses! they were online, and even cheaper than if i used my insurance! i was encouraged by this. the online price was almost down into the reasonable range. i started looking at lenses. there were pages and pages of different lenses. and most of them were significantly less than the prices i had been quoted earlier in the day. now i was starting to get excited. maybe i was going to get the glasses i liked after all.

and then i started thinking... what if the prescription wasn't right? what if i picked an awful lens that was heavy or distorted? what if i changed my mind and decided i wanted the transition tint? what if it turned out that the glasses weren't what they were described to be? what if i decided i really wanted something way different than what i already have? what if i really didn't love them? if anything was wrong, there wouldn't be real person to deal with--it would just be the internet.

so now i don't know. is it worth the risk of ordering online? should i just go to costco, even though it takes so long to get the glasses back? should i go back to lens crafter's and just choose something there?

or should i just get out the hammer and super glue and try to fix the glasses i have. i do really like them. and they are only three or four years old. i could probably get by without them for two weeks while new lenses are put in... my vision isn't that bad...

sigh. some days i just wish i was a dog...

2 comments:

Wendy said...

You need to go get the ones you love and forget about the money. And STOP thinking about it! It's just money and you can't take it with you!

mom said...

Did you know:
Kaiser can repair your glasses?
(usually while you wait and at
no cost)

If Kaiser has those frames with
the jewels you like, you can
buy the frames on line and take
them to Kaiser for the lenses?
(Check first to be sure but
you can do it here.) Dad
has his frames used over
and over.

Otherwise, get what you want. You won't be sorry!!! Then after the 18 months are up and you need new lenses, you can just have them put into the same frames. My goodness, you could wear the frames for years!!!!!