$500.00 Glasses

Friday night at church the conversation turned to glasses and I mentioned I needed to visit an optician (where you buy glasses).  The pastor, Majdi, who is a doctor, volunteered to take me to the shop he deals with.  I accepted.  So the next day, Saturday, he and his wife, Margo, and his son Mark took me to the shop.

I went there to get my glasses adjusted.  This would be the glasses made for me in San Diego to replace the ones I broke when I was holding the 9mm too close to my face and the “kick” of the weapon slammed into my glasses cracking them.  It gave me a “black eye” but no serious or permanent damage.  But I’ve been wearing those glasses ever since.

Well, I did get those glasses adjusted, but they talked me into buying new ones too.  Not that that was hard–it’s been awhile since I had civilian glasses, and I did want some and besides it’s good to have more than one pair (at least if you’re in the military).   They wanted me to try these frames that were made of titanium.  They’re supposed to be stronger than regular metal frames, but they are way bendier.  These are also of the frameless style–only earpieces and a nosepiece–no metal around the lenses.  I was unsure that my huge, thick glasses could stand a style like that, but they convinced me otherwise.  So I picked out one of those kind of frames.  They helped me do so too–it helps having someone who can actually see tell you if it looks good or not.  And it turns out they have better taste than I do.  That’s not unusual; most people do.  (I have no fashion sense whatsoever.)

So then I thought about getting prescription sunglasses, but to get the polarized kind, which is the kind I wanted, it would have been almost $700.00.  That was too much money; I did not get prescription sunglasses.  And they wouldn’t have even been high index either.  But that’s the way it goes when you’re blind.  The more blind you are, the more expensive glasses are.  More on that later.

After this the lady helping us took me into the back room for a quickie eye exam to see if my prescription had changed.  Everything was the same as I’m very familiar with except the eye chart.  Instead of a variety of letters it had only one: C, in a variety of configurations.  She asked me which way it was facing, so I told her where the opening in the C was–up, down, etc.  After talking with a guy I work with yesterday, I think the next time I go get an eye exam I’m not going to guess when I can’t see them clearly.  I’ll just tell them it’s too blurry.  He says that’s the only way to get a stronger prescription where you can see clearly.  He may have a point.  I do seem to consistently get prescriptions where I can just barely see.  I guess you have to lie to them to get what you need.

But anyway the lady said my astigmatism had improved slightly.  This sounded weird to me, but the doctor assured me that it could happen and is not uncommon as people age.  He said my visual acuity would never improve though.  I’d rather figured that.  No surprise there. 

Having several days to think about it, I think maybe the lady’s right.  The glasses I have now seem to distort the world in subtle ways.  The world seems farther away and offcenter or perhaps slightly at an angle.  It’s a little difficult to read the computer screen unless I’m pretty close (or I make the text bigger).  The letters seem to jump around a little, except that they’re still too.  It’s like part of them is blurry and part is clear.  It’s hard to explain.  It’s hard to see them, but yet I can see them.  Maybe I should have lied on the eye exam.  Maybe that is the key. 

So after that it was time to finalize the order and pay up.  So I thought.  It was actually time to negotiate the price.  This involved Majdi talking to this salesman in Arabic (only an occasional word did I understand) with occasional translated-to-English questions for me.  The first price, after having a discount (something I gathered Majdi was entitled to either because he is a regular customer or because he is a doctor) applied was 185BD.  For your information, BD means Bahraini dinar and is the currency here.  I will be quoting more prices in dinar.  You can convert to dollars very easily: just multiply the amount in dinar by 2.66.  Your computer has a calculator even if you don’t.  Your cell phone has a calculator too. 

After I did the math on a calculator provided by the store, I thought this was too much money.  After all, it’s close to $500.  Once before I’d paid $400 for glasses.  I knew my glasses would be expensive, but I hadn’t wanted to pay more than $400 for them.

Majdi agreed with me and began negotiating again, telling the guy he needed another discount.  I listened as best I could with interest.  I didn’t know it would be possible to give another discount–after all, weren’t computer sales systems “locked in”–the salesperson had to charge what was programmed into the machine, right?  Well…apparently in Bahrain, not right.

The guy didn’t want to give another discount of course, so he started showing me from his, for lack of a better word, catalogues the prices of everything.  Frames: 45BD.  I knew they’d be expensive.  After doing the math, I thought that was probably what such frames would cost in the States.  Lenses: High Index: 133BD.  This surprised me.  Yes I know high index is the most expensive frames there are; but I didn’t think they’d be this much. (For those who don’t know, high index is the top of a continuum of how to get greater curvature of a lens while making it light and thin.  Glass lenses are at the bottom–heaviest and thickest.  Then you have plastic lenses.  Then you have polycarbonate lenses (“featherweights” is a trade name of this kind of lens).  There may be another kind in there, but next, or at least the top is High index.  Since they’re so expensive, it’s not recommended to get them unless your eyes are really bad like mine.  For me it’s not an option–I need this kind.  Polycarbonate just wouldn’t do it for me.  Those kind would be too thick and heavy.  Jeremy, whose eyesight is around 20/400 has polycarbonate lenses.  My eyesight is more like 20/3000–in other words, such measurements are meaningless at my vision level–lack thereof.)  Then there were two coatings, that are optional for a lot of people, but due to my unique (and lack of) vision are not optional for me.  These are anti-scratch and anti-reflective coating.  Anti-scratch is important because it’s easy to get scratches when you’re wearing your glasses daily all day long and scratches are very hard to see around or through.  They make a big blurry spot that will never go away.  Not good.  And anti-glare is important because it’s hard to see through glare.  And when your field of vision is already small glare just makes it smaller.   (The extreme curvature of the lens required for me to be able to see also creates a “fishbowl effect.”  I have to look out the center of my glasses to have clarity; looking out to the side gives a distorted picture, like looking through the side of a fishbowl or through 100 year old glass.  It’s also why I tend to bump into people or things.  Either I truly didn’t see you or I thought you were farther away than you were.  Reminds you of the notice on the side mirror of your car–objects may be closer than they appear–yes, the effect is rather like that–welcome to my world.)  So the anti-scratch coating (which is a diamond coating–how cool is that?) was 25BD.  He didn’t tell me how much the other coating was.  So the final price was at least 203BD. 

But Majdi did talk him down again.  He tried to get him to take 175BD, but the guy wouldn’t have it.  They finally agreed on 178BD and asked me if I agreed.  Tired of the negotiations and resigned to paying more than $400, I agreed.  So, my glasses, while not $500 exactly are almost $475.  That’s still a lot of money.

I might try contacts again.  I’ve tried them twice so far, with no luck.  But Majdi talked the guy into giving me a trial pair and the guy did keep my prescription, so we’ll see when I go back Saturday to pick up the glasses.  The last time I tried contacts they were always blurry and the doctor said that was the best she could do.  I’d have to live with it.  And I did–by going back to wearing glasses.  Majdi explained that contacts aren’t always available in all prescriptions, so they give you what is closest.  If you need -2.75 for example and they only have -2.50 or -3.00, they’ll give you -2.50.  But technology improves all the time, and so he and the guy behind the counter thought they could get me my prescription.  We’ll see.

Don’t say what so many people are starting to say to me: “Why don’t you get surgery?”  I get tired of answering this question, so I’ll answer it only once:  I can’t have surgery.  The doctor said I’m not a good candidate.  I guess they’d have to shave off too much of my cornea.  Ugh.  I wouldn’t want to have flat eyeballs!  So, no, my eyes are too bad for surgery.

On the other side, if I’d been born in an earlier century, before they had the optics technology they have now, I’d have been a blind girl.  Maybe I would have been taught braille, sent to a blind school, used a white stick, the whole works.  That is if I were lucky.  If schooling wasn’t available, I may have been taken care of by my family all my life, never to marry or have my own house or anything like that.  That’s also if I were lucky.  If my family were too poor or unwilling to take care of me, I would have had the fate of all handicapped people–either go to a poor/workhouse which were like prisons, but with really poor living conditions (life expectancy–very low) or become a begger on the streets (life expectancy–also very low).  So you see, I do have it good.  At least in this century I do have a chance to see, even if it’s imperfectly (after being corrected) and expensive, and I have a chance to live a normal life.  So I really don’t have anything to complain about, even when I do get tired of being chained to glasses.  They are my eyes, no doubt about it.  I really do have four eyes–the removable two that work and the two in my head that are cosmetic and that don’t work.  So go ahead, call me four eyes–it’s true.