The Lenscrafters Trail of Tears

The clock shows the percentage of your life that will be wasted

Last November, I decided that all the squinting I was doing at my computer screen was annoying me, so I asked a bunch of people where they got their eyes checked and of course either no one knew where to go, people went to places out of state, or they had LASIK. So finally Megan provides me with the name of her optometrist, Dr. Gilmer at Lenscrafters, so I call them to book an appointment and they said that Gilmer wasn't in on Thursdays, but Dr. Hernandez could see me. So I leave work slightly early and go to the store where a technician makes me look into 4 machines that essentially replace the role of the optometrist by blowing air into my eyes which magically gives the correct prescription. When Dr. Hernandez sees me, she yells at me for not having seen an optometrist in 10 years, tells me that the contacts that I'm wearing are gradually making me go blind and spends approximately 5 minutes figuring out my new prescription and giving me cheap trial contacts. A few days later when it is revealed that I still can't see, I come back to the store, Dr. Hernandez tests my eyes again, tells me that my prescription has mysteriously changed within the course of 4 days and that this is a tell-tale sign of Diabeetus and is in no way connected to her giving me the wrong prescription the first time around.

In any event, this wrong prescription/leave work early/return to store happens four more times because I have nothing better to do than wear contact lenses that make me see halos around everything and I enjoy spending my free time arguing with the people there about whether I am purposely trying to get the wrong prescription because I enjoy being blind. Finally, Dr. Gilmer gave me a decent prescription that allows me to see somewhat out of both eyes, so I took the trial pair and RAN. For six months they've been calling me every other week for a follow-up to "confirm" the prescription, but frankly if I don't have time to avoid cancer by getting my follow-up cervical cancer vaccine, I don't have time to see correctly.

So today I get an extremely angry voicemail from the Lenscrafters manager saying that if I don't call them back, they will re-charge me for an optometrist visit when I return to get more contacts. As I'm preparing my excuse for why I haven't called them back in six months (out of the country, death in the family, changed my number, sequestered for reality show), I realized that it is actually completely ridiculous for her to be threatening me because if I want to be blind, that's my prerogative and she should butt out. I made an appointment for next Friday, and honestly if they even try and yell at me I will open up a world of pain on their glasses.