My Rant of the Day: Screw Today's Eyeglasses, Literally!

Well, I woke up this morning to start a normal day, but when I picked up my eyeglasses from the nightstand the left lens fell out and I could not find the microscopic screw that held it in place. It was hard enough trying to do it with one eye, and it doesn't help that the screw is even smaller than any screw I have ever seen inside a computer. When I picked up the lens that fell out I realized how ridiculously small the current style of eyeglasses have the lens these days. I am currently wearing my "old" pair of glasses which are about 3 years old now and slightly out of focus, but I noticed their lenses are a good 30-40% larger than the lens of my current glasses. Frankly, I prefer the slightly larger lenses, but it is hard to find them anymore and they are not considered as "fashionable".  And since the frames are thinner to go with the smaller lenses, the screws they use on them are smaller too. Would the screws to any of my old glasses work with my new glasses? Of course not! They had to be smaller and more special and completely different. I checked the 10 million spare screws I had here at my office and all of them are too big too.

Another thing I noticed when I purchased my latest pair in early 2010 is they have become even more ridiculously expensive because of their small size. "You see", the optician explained, "to put your prescription on this small of a lens requires the highest index glass or the lenses would be really thick, so we have to charge you an extra $175." What a racket! They make the small lenses "fashionable" so you'll want to buy them, but then to get your prescription to work with them you need higher index glass so they can charge you even more.

When I purchased my glasses last year I was shocked at the final price. You sure pay a lot for some tiny glasses. They cost more than our 40" LCD HDTV ($650 for the HDTV, almost $700 for the glasses)! I remember 18 years ago when our new 27" Toshiba tube TV cost more than twice as much as my eyeglasses back then ($450 versus ~$200). Now I can purchase a TV that is twice as large for less than the price of my eyeglasses! Is that progress?

One final rant. I was going to go back to the optician that sold me my overpriced glasses last year to have them put in a proper screw in my glasses. They close at 3:30pm on Fridays and are closed on the weekends. I guess they do not need to be open very often since they stiff their customers so much. I'm never using them again.