Contact lens wearers have a challenge when it comes to traveling: remembering to pack a pair of eyeglasses. And most of us have forgotten them on at least one trip. Here’s a tip to try so you never forget your glasses on vacation again.
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Boys don’t make passes at girls who wear glasses. I’ve Googled around and can’t find the ad I KNOW I remember hearing/seeing back in the ’70’s that shamed near-sighted women. Maybe it was Bausch & Lomb as part of their advertising for contact lenses?
Without corrective lenses, I’m blind. Not squint-to-read-a-menu blind. I’m talking Mr. Magoo on a bad day. So my travel packing requires a contact lens case, solution and eyeglasses.
Despite my best efforts, the glasses and contacts remain the things I throw in my bag at the last-minute because I can’t pack them until I’ve dressed the day of a trip. And sometimes they get left behind. And then there are unintended consequences.
Because it was an unplanned spree, I forgot the case, solution and eyeglasses on a getaway to the Jersey Shore. I didn’t realize, of course, until I was getting ready for bed well past an hour when I could roll myself back into the car and hunt down a still open pharmacy.
So I rigged a workaround for the contacts using tap water and the top to a Tylenol bottle (never, ever tell this to Dr. Weiss, my ophthalmologist). But I had to stumble around spectacle-less. Since I was staying in a boarding house with shared bathrooms in the hallway, there was potential for mayhem. All closed doors look alike, especially to the near blind. “Excuse me, sir. I thought this was the bathroom.” I made it through the night without embarrassing myself and kissed the linoleum floor in CVS the next morning.
The remedy, of course, would be purchasing a second set of glasses. However, when you are nearsighted to the nth degree, a pair of glasses cost about the same as a Nissan Versa.
However, I had my annual checkup and was not surprised to find out that I’d gotten blinder. Leaving the office, clutching my prescription, I decided to look at this as an opportunity, not another step towards the nursing home.
Usually I toss the new prescription in to the junk drawer and squint my way through because of the expense. However, my daughter recommended Warby Parker, the online eyeglass retailer as a source for inexpensive prescription eyeglasses, so I figured I’d give them a try. I picked out a bunch of frames to try on at home. I found a pair that I thought made me look like an older (way older) Zooey Deschanel.
I mailed all of the frames back and completed an online order form, filling in the information from my prescription. A couple of days later, Warby Parker sent an email asking for a pupil measurement; I had to take a picture of myself, holding a card with a mag strip under my nose, and then measure the distance between my pupils. This is where I assumed the whole enterprise would fail, but, surprisingly, my glasses arrived a few days later. I can see clearly now and they only cost $125. Warby Parker for the win!
Forget Your Glasses on Vacation? Try This Tip!
When my new eyeglasses arrived, I put my old eyeglasses, a new contact lens case and a fresh bottle of contact lens solution into my pre-packed toiletry go bag, never to be forgotten again.
I’ve always wanted to say “I can be ready at a moment’s notice” and now I can…I think.
