I got a new pair of glasses last week, a week after Ian passed through. I need glasses because my eyesight is so bad at 20/700+, meaning I can clearly see at 20 feet what people with normal eyesight see at 700 feet. Yes, I’m blind. This is my second pair this year. The first pair, purchased at Costco, broke in two at the bridge when they fell off my face and into my hands. I don’t know why, but it was a single clean break. That forced me to go back to the pair before those so I could see well enough to legally drive. I tried to get Costco to sell me a new pair of frames for $50, but after two months of waiting I gave up and went to my insurance company and asked them if I could order another pair from a different optometrist. I became eligable in late August, and that’s when I went to a local Visionworks (Visionworks at Millenia) to get an eye exam and order a new pair. Visionworks had a deal with my vision insurance, so I went there to keep my costs as low as possible.

These Penguin brand frames (“The Princeton”) are big, bulky, kind of homely, built like a brick outhouse. Stylish they ain’t. Style be damned, I want a Brutalist kind of practicality. There’re more heavy screws holding everything together than I’ve ever seen before with glasses frames. The plastic top is a lot thicker all around than the last pair that didn’t last worth a damn. Where there isn’t plastic, there’s thick metal everywhere, including a heavy band across the bottom of each lens. These frames stay attached to my head a lot better than the pair I purchased at Costco. Even when I’m outside working and the sweat is pouring off my head because I’m looking down while working, the glasses stay put. Out and about and wearing a mask (because COVID is still out there) I don’t have any problems keeping everything firmly planted on my face. Total cost of these new glasses, including examination and lenses, was less than the cost of the frames by themselves.

I call them dad glasses because my wife calls them that, and she calls them that because she says my new glasses look almost identical to what her dad wore. That’s fine by me.