Opinion: Never losing sight in the search for those spectacular spectacles

When it’s time for me to choose eyeglass frames, my husband doesn’t want to be anywhere in sight. He could eat breakfast, lunch and dinner at the food court and I’d still be trying on frames.

Unfortunately, he never gets the food. Instead, he graciously follows me around the vision store, eyeballing me, while I make a spectacle of myself sampling every spectacle in sight. Then, he’s pressured for his point of view on which spectacle he thought was the most spectacular.

Last August, things changed. Five minutes into my search, prescription in hand, an employee approached me.

“I have the perfect frame for you.” She announced. “Wait here.”

Before I could move, she returned and handed me the frames. I tried them, took one look in the mirror and I was in love.

“They’re perfect.” I exclaimed.

“Spectacular.” My husband smiled. “Look no further.”

I loved my new glasses. I showed them to everyone, took selfies in them, and kept them in their, special, matching case. Then, a month ago, I lost them.

I searched high and low. I must have called a million places, more than once. Then, my tunnel vision gave way to an insight: order a replacement pair! An exact duplicate. I called the vision store and they made my vision come true. Yes, it was going to cost me. But, I couldn’t see any other way.

Excited, I went to pick them up. See, once you’ve had the perfect tortoise shell frames, with gold flecks in all the right places, nothing else measures up. That’s how I felt about the replacements.

“They don’t have as many gold flecks.” I whined to my husband.

“They’re great.” He replied.

I wasn’t happy. I convinced him that maybe another store had the frame with more gold flecks and they could pop out my lenses and put them in their frames. I dragged him around to a bunch of other stores searching for the perfect replacement for my not-so-perfect replacement. My 30-day return period was running out and nothing was in sight.

On day 30, while organizing a small closet, I caught a glimpse of something. Was it an optical illusion?

“My glasses!” I screamed.

“See?” My husband shouted. “I told you they would turn up in an odd place.”

I saw clearly. I had hours left to return my not-so perfect, replacements.

Look, readers. Learn from my mistake. If you lose sight of what you’re doing, you risk losing other stuff too, like glasses. Are we clear?

This story was originally published July 11, 2017 at 4:50 PM with the headline "Opinion: Never losing sight in the search for those spectacular spectacles."