Friday, March 7, 2014

Life & Times Of A Grown-Up Nerd

Some time ago, I wrote a brief piece on the watering-down of nerdery. And while I still roll my eyes at the loose use of a real descriptor, there are certain things that this strange fad has made easier.

Short version: I am shopping for new glasses.

Let me bring these guys back for another nerd post...
Long version: As a brace-faced four-eyes, I was the expensive kid (at least, in certain respects). For one, my parents had to shell out some serious cash for my braces. I say "had to" because I was one of those cases where they were not for cosmetic reasons and had my teeth gone un-fixed, I would have a very hard time speaking now. All of this was not aided by my own pervading klutziness at the time, which somehow extended to my teeth and meant I needed to get brackets replaced on a regular basis. Drove my orthodontist crazy.

But the glasses ... egads.

When I was 11, I was sitting in the bleachers with my parents at Mia Sorella's basketball game. At some point, someone said something about the score -- and my mother, realizing how hard I was squinting, asked me what the score was. I couldn't answer her. Heck, I couldn't even tell her which period it was.

A couple weeks later, I was at the optometrist, getting my brand new hilariously unstylish glasses fitted. (They were very round and VERY blue.) And so it was that I was forever cast in my nerd role.

Unfortunately, I was still accident prone. I ended up getting a lot of different frames over the years that could withstand some humorously bad situations before I finally ended up with contacts. (That admittedly had more to do with me never being able to see what was going on when I was playing soccer.) Over the course of time, the switch would end up being much cheaper -- I have yet to need additional lenses above my yearly quota and generally speaking two years' worth of lenses cost less than a new pair of glasses every two years.

I tell you this long, drawn-out story to make something more clear.
  1. I have a bad track record with glasses. 
  2. Said track record has made me a cheapskate.
  3. As such, at this point in time I have one (old) destroyed pair of glasses and a pair of (hideous) safety glasses with a 7-year-old prescription. When I take out my contacts, I just ... don't really get to see anymore.
Enter Warby Parker.

As it happens, the nerd fad has made it easier and cheaper for someone with genuinely bad vision and a penchant for nerdy stuff to get a pair of glasses. Instead of getting cheap frames and still having to shell out big bucks for lenses for a pair of glasses I'll only wear at night or when my contacts are giving me fits, I can order a pair here -- a complete pair -- for just under a hundred bucks. Thanks to my podcasting habits, I can even get free shipping. Even better, they already sent me five pairs for at-home try-on for absolutely nothing ... which means I won't find myself staring blankly at a wall of frames for an hour and a half.

[Side note: Ever notice how the more choices you have, the longer it takes to make a decision? I feel like I could graph something if I had any concrete data.]

If it sounds like a commercial, it's because I'm really enthused about them right now. At the moment this is because I found something I like and now I can wear them around to make sure they'll actually be comfortable (something I never got to do at the optometrist's office). I have a few days to try out the various pairs and make sure I like my choice before I send them back and get a full set (with the proper lenses) ordered.

Lo and behold, the set I like is ... well, pretty much exactly what you might expect.


A little Clark-Kent-y (Clara-Kent-y?) but I like 'em. They go well with my pile of history books.

2 comments:

Amanda said...

Love the glasses and the hair style!

Ashley said...

Thanks! :)