I’m blind as a bat; I’ve worn glasses since seventh grade and I am notoriously hard on them. I drop them. I fall asleep in them. I sit on them and step on them. And then, in the unlikely event I actually take them off at night and put them on the night table the cat knocks them off and bats them across the floor, hockey puck style. Given the abuse I subject my glasses to I was not at all surprised , when I looked in the mirror last week, that my right lens was a good inch higher than my left lens.
Thankfully the place where I bought the glasses offers “free adjustments for life” so I visited on my lunch hour. In all my many trips to this place I have never seen the same person twice; the average employee must work there for about a day and a half; today I was greeted by a bored older woman, Claire, who sat me down, plucked the glasses off my nose without ceremony and began twisting them like she was wringing a washcloth. “Some people should not wear glasses,” she said under her breath.
I ignored that one. “I just need to get them straightened out,” I said breezily. “They do it here all the time for me.”
She gave the glasses a vicious twist and one of the arms came off in her hand. She held up both pieces of my eyeglasses which until that point had been had been crooked but whole.
“It’s broken,” she said with a straight face. “I can’t fix these.” Before I could protest she was in her computer. “But you’re in luck,” she said. “You have replacement coverage. It will only cost $100 for new frames.”
“I don’t need them replaced,” I said evenly. “I need them repaired.”
“These can’t be repaired,” Claire said, holding up both pieces. “Just get a new pair.” When I did not respond she said, “It’s only $100.”
“I’m not paying $100,” I said. “You broke them, not me.”
Claire glared at me. “You destroyed them,” she said coldly, “I just put them out of their misery.”
I took a deep breath; I wanted to walk out but she still had my glasses; without them I could not find my car in the parking lot, let alone drive home. “Just fix them,” I said, surprising myself with my level tone.
Claire sighed and went back to “the Lab” a mysterious place situated behind glass walls and populated by people dressed in log white coats. She was gone for a long time but when she came back she had my glasses. I held out my hands for them but curiously she batted my hands away and put them on my face, nearly taking an eye out in the process.
They were still askew, but now one side felt very heavy. Wondering, I took them off and saw how she had repaired my broken arm.
“You fixed them with duct tape!” I said, although she clearly must have known .
“I had to,” she said, deadpan. “You were missing a couple of screws.” She paused. “Just buy a new pair of glasses,” she said. “It’s only $100.”
I had had enough. “Can you get the manager please?”
Claire shrugged. “I AM the manager,” she said, adding helpfully, “you can hardly see the duct tape.”
“I spent most of my high school years wearing glasses held together with tape,” I told Claire; “I’m not about to start again now.”
Now Claire laughed out loud. “Are you afraid someone might mistake you for a high school student?” she asked condescendingly.
That was it; I took my taped-together eyeglasses, stormed out, called the corporate office, raised hell and got a new pair of glasses at no charge. When I went back a couple days later to pick them up Claire was gone.
“She was fired yesterday,” said the new manager, “but I think I know where she left your new glasses.” She went to the Lab and came back a minute later.
“This is odd,” she said. “Someone sealed your eye glass case with duct tape.”