Getting new glasses is an adventure for me. A poopy adventure, but an adventure nonetheless. Due to my picky nature and my astigmatism, I am very particular about my glasses. New lenses take me weeks to get used to, and even then I’m always pretty sure that my last prescription was better. There’s axis, rotation and other words to deal with. By the time I replace, my old frames are bent to hell and I’ve grown accustomed to everything looking wrong. It’s a whole new hell getting back to right.
So I picked up my new glasses yesterday. Top of the line jobbies, these:` Rimless flexy frames to withstand being used as a monkey gym by my monkeys, high-impact polycarbonate lenses in case I’m ever shot in the face by a shotgun or hit my a flying cow, and all the latest and greatest coatings and lens treatments. I’ve got an anti-reflective coating to make driving at night or watching internet porn, er, working in front of the computer all day less fatiguing for my eyes. I’ve got what they call a hydrophopic coating (because who doesn’t want rabid lenses) to repel water and oil. By virtue of the lens material itself, I’ve got UV protection, which will allow for a more responsible eyeball tanning, cancer-free. And finally, at the suggestion of the optician, and for a mere $7, I have polished edges.
Polished edges are great! To minimize the appearance of your lens edges, the natural matte finish you get normally is ground off and polished. The Idea, I gather, is to make it so people don’t see the edges of your lenses and therefore can’t tell that you are wearing glasses. Considering the enlarged bridge, and the fact that there are still little metal bits to stick behind one’s ears, I don’t think that trick is going to work. What, everyone looking at me is going to think “Hey, you’ve got a bit of metal floating above your nose and weird metal bits sticking out from behind your ears, but I can’t see the lens edges, so you must not be wearing glasses?” Umm, yeah, sorry but it doesn’t work that way. The whole light reflecting off the lenses thing and bits of dust and fingerprints floating in front of my eyes are a pretty good giveaway, for starters.
Anyway, back to the polished edges. Instead of a dull, refractive surface that scatters the light nicely, I now have a thin, curved magnifying area that reflects every stray bit of light from the edges directly into my eyes, blinding me in all but the darkest room. Great idea, that. “Yes please, could you make my lenses non-reflective everywhere EXCEPT the edges, which I want customized to direct as much bright, stray, absolutely useless to me light directly into my corneas? I want to be completely blind by next Tuesday, thank you.” The good news is that it was only an additional $7 U.S. to pay for blindness. Since my optician refuses to fix it, I plan on sanding the buggers down this weekend (my lens edges, not the optician).


