Waiting nine months, I believe, has opened up a Pandora's Box of confusion that has turned getting new glasses into an ordeal, and this is my fault.
First, when I decided that I really should get a new prescription, I couldn't find it. I, in fact, found my old prescription, but that was from three years ago. So, I had to go to the eyeglass place to get another copy of my prescription, and I wanted to avoid that because I am going to buy frames at Warby Parker, not this place. Doing that kind of feels like showrooming, even though I'm not sure buying frames at Warby Parker will be cheaper, or better.
But I lost the prescription and so I went to the eye care center for another copy. I took that to Warby Parker, but the person who was about to take my order noticed that this new prescription doesn't have a ... uh, what did he call it ... a power number that would make my lenses bifocals, which I need. I wear progressive glasses (aka bifocals), and I saw that my old prescription had something for that, but the exam from February did not. So, was I cured of my nearsightedness in the two-plus years between examinations? Or did the optometrist just flat-out screw up?
So I had to go back the eye care center on Monday. The doctor who made the description wasn't there, but she could review my "script" and get back to me in the morning. Well, I didn't hear from her as of yesterday/Thursday afternoon, so I went back to the eye care center to see if they had an answer. Out comes the owner of the store, and he confirmed something the Warby Parker guy, who I had turned part of my brain off to because the jargon was going over my head: My new "script" didn't have that power factor because it was meant to only be for reading/nearsighted glasses.
And this is where I really screwed myself. I thought I was getting a prescription for general purpose eyeglasses, ones that I use for, like, both driving and then for looking at a computer. Apparently my eyes need something whereby I use a part of the lens distance sight and part of it for reading close-up. Those are what bifocals -- "progressive" lenses I guess is the politically correct term for them now -- are for. So why is my updated prescription meant for only long distance, such as driving? Did I tell her I only wanted glasses for faraway things, and that I was going to use two different eyeglasses?
So I show the owner the glasses I have, the one that had my old prescription. These are bifocals! And then he looked at them ... and he couldn't see the transition from far sight to near on them. He got one of his employees -- all three of them were standing around him at this point because they were about to close -- to look through them and she couldn't see and progressive "part" of my eyeglasses. And that's when it dawned on me: That old prescription, that one with the "power" factor, is not the one I have in my eyeglasses now. That old prescription, from 2019, I did use ... to buy sunglasses at this place, at I think late 2019. I have those sunglasses -- in my car, when I use them to drive and when it's sunny out. My current eyeglasses are from an even older prescription, from I don't remember when. Stupid me. Stupid fucking me.
Now, the issue of not knowing what my eyeglasses are, as complicated as it seems in my head, is a different issue from what kind of eyeglasses I want to use. Me not knowing what I'm looking through right now aren't bifocals does not mean that I shouldn't have a bifocals-type "script" when I got my eye exam in February. But it does explain (partly) why I have to take off my glasses nowadays to look at something up close. I thought it was because my eyes were getting bad. Nope -- it's because the glasses I'm using now aren't general purpose progressives. That's what I want ... now. Did I communicate that with the optometrist who administered my exam back in February? Did I somehow tell her the opposite -- that I already have bifocals, and I just want eyeglasses to look faraway? Again, I don't remember because this was back in February ... and I forgot.
The owner -- who, by the way, kept wearing his mask wrong, which is an annoyance but he really did help me -- finally convinced me that I want general purpose eyeglasses and therefore this prescription needs updating, and he said he'll talk to the examiner this afternoon to try and retro-prescribe this power factor. That explains why my "script" seemed to be better than last time. But a part of me is afraid I told her several months ago something I no longer want now. Or maybe I did. See, all of this is part of me misremembering things, goddammit.
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