I've often thought about returning to blogging. I’m always thinking of the hilarious stories I could write, the amusing anecdotes, the tall tales, the--ok I'm out of ideas. But seriously, I do think about this blog, and then I simply don't follow through. But now that my Auntie Di (http://www.ingredients-for-health.com/) and my sister Nicole (http://functional-fresh-fabulous.blogspot.com/) have both started blogs, I feel inadequate. I mean, I was the first one in my family to start one. But alas, they have beaten me with their consistency (both having written for more than two whole days!)
But I'm back, and this time I promise you readers, all 3 or maybe even 4 of you, that I too can write with consistency! When Nicole or Auntie Di post, I will feel shamed and compelled into posting as well.
I figure my first post back should be one of the classic struggles we in the eyewear industry endure daily, the passage of time. While some people feel that time has passed far more quickly than it has, (“Where are my glasses? It’s been weeks since I ordered them!” “You just left here an hour ago!”) others feel the opposite. These others are always, without a doubt, contact lens wearers.
You see, in Alberta the rules are quite strict. If your current prescription is more than two years old, we cannot sell you contacts. It’s mostly so that your eyes don’t rot and fall out of your head, but it’s also a little bit because we’re jerks like that. A conversation one might overhear goes like this;
Employee: “I’m sorry, but it looks like your prescription expired last month. Have you had a new eye exam done since then?”
Customer: “I just bought contacts six months ago.”
Employee: “Yes. (Pause.) Yes you did.” (At this point, we usually wait to see if the logic has sunk in. It, invariably, has not.)
Customer: “So I wanna buy the same ones.”
Employee: “But now your prescription is expired.”
Customer: “But I just bought contacts.”
Employee: “Yes. Six months ago. And your prescription expired one month ago.”
Customer (quite indignant, as clearly the employee is the idiot): “Then how could I buy my contacts last time?”
Employee: “Because last time your prescription was still valid. Now…it is…not.”
You see, the average contact lens wearer does not understand that in the time that has elapsed since their last purchase, events of many types have transpired. One of these events was the expiration of their contact lens prescription. This conversation can go back and forth for quite some time, with one or both people becoming quite irate.
Customer (sighing): “Well then how do I order contacts?”
Employee: “You need to have an eye exam done, and then a contact lens fitting.”
Customer: “Why do I have to have a fitting done? I know how to put them in.” (Please note that the employee has said nothing here about how to put them in. Shall we applaud that the customer still knows how to put them in? I'm honestly flummoxed as to how to respond to this statement.)
Employee: “We need to make sure your contacts still fit your eyes properly with the new prescription.”
Customer: “I’ve never had to have that done before!”
Employee (showing the file): “You actually had one done two years ago. And two years before that. And two years before that. And two years before that. And another two years before that. In fact, you have had these appointments done every two years since 1990. You’ve had ten—TEN—of these appointments in the past! And you don’t REMEMBER?”
Customer: “Oh. Yeah. I forgot.”
At this point the employee usually has to be restrained by several burly gentlemen.
So why is it that contact lens customers are usually so, shall I say, forgetful? One common theory is that one or more contact lenses have actually slid up the customer’s eyeball and has been sucked along the edge of the optic nerve and is now lodged in the person’s parietal lobe like some sort of beaver dam, with large quantities of time building and building up until one day the lens caves in, and a massive flood of time bursts forth, flooding through the whole brain, at which point the person comes in to the store and asks “Where are my glasses? It’s been weeks since I ordered them!”
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