“It’s fun to play games with vision, but don’t play games with your eyes!”
— old public service commercial
One day, while I’m in the fourth grade, I am told that I need glasses.
For years I go to a local guy, Mr. Sacco, whom I can always count on — until he retires. Gradually most of the local opticians fade from view as the chain stores pretty much take over.
I go to one of them for a few years. It’s OK, but one day, two years ago, I decide to go elsewhere because I can’t seem to negotiate the store’s phone menu when I call for an appointment.
Someone I know recommends another place — a local store run by two guys.
One of them is there when I arrive without an appointment. He greets me cordially. As we discuss my prescription, it occurs to me that this place is like Mr. Sacco’s — I feel I’m being treated like a valued customer and not like grist for some corporate lens-grinding mill.
I tell him how nice it is that I have now found a local place that I can depend on for my eyewear.
A few days later, when I come to pick up my glasses, the guy’s partner takes care of me. He’s also pleasant, and as we chat he mentions his years of experience, including time spent working for one of the chains. Oh the stories I could tell you, he says.
I leave the store as a satisfied customer.
A couple of weeks later I’m riding a bus when it passes the opticians’ building.
I look out the window. I notice a sign.
The business has gone out of business. Thanks for your patronage, etc.
One year later I take a deep breath and go back to the chain store with my latest prescription. In addition to the basic lenses, for years I’ve been getting progressive bifocals.
They take me without an appointment, and a few days later someone hands me a case containing my new glasses. This seems odd; usually opticians have you try them on.
Fast-forward to a week and a half ago. I have my annual exam, but the doctor tells me that the glasses I’ve been wearing don’t have progressive bifocals. He assures me his prescription called for them.
He suggests that I go back to the store and tell them. Maybe I’ll get a refund or discount.
I go to the store and make my case. The guy asks me if I have last year’s prescription. I tell him the doctor said they should have it on file. I wind up having to tell him this twice.
He finds the prescription on his tablet. He points to something and seems to say that there’s a specification for progressive bifocals, but apparently (assuming I’m understanding him correctly) I was supposed to specifically ask for them.
I’ve never had to do that, I say. It’s always been this way, he says. Besides which, I had a hundred days to complain about my glasses and I didn’t, so no refund.
I also mention how the glasses were handed to me in a case, with no one offering to let me try them on.
“You always had that option,” he says. Somehow I’m in the last reel of “The Wizard of Oz,” where Glinda tells Dorothy she could have gone home any time she wanted to do so. (Even as a kid seeing the movie for the first time, I wanted to punch Glinda. Didn’t you?)
So I schedule an appointment with another local place, which I had avoided because I heard it’s pricey. But at least it’s not a chain.
Turns out it’s run by a guy who seems to do the things Mr. Sacco used to do, and even more. He takes measurements, glances at my face from several angles and charges a price I think I can afford. (I do have a couple of tax refunds coming.)
He has been in business for 25 years, and he says he’s not going anywhere soon. He says he’ll call me in a couple of weeks.
We’ll see.
