So I went down to the shore mall today in my bitchin' Camaro Porsche to buy some Def Leppard t-shirts glasses — as those of you who have seen me know, mine are too big (the lenses are too big that is) and they look kind of funny. My glasses are perfectly round, so it's hard to find frames. Anyway, I went into the glasses place and this is roughly how it went:
Me: I'm looking for some glasses with round lenses, a little smaller than the ones I'm wearing.
One-toothed optician: OK… let's see… how about these?
Here's the rough shape of the ones she showed me:
Clearly those were not round.
Me: No, no, I mean perfectly round. Like a circle.
One-tooth: These are perfectly round.
Me: I mean like a circle. Totally round. The same height as width… shaped like a coin.
One-tooth: They don't make round glasses.
Me: No, really, you can get round glasses. I'm sure of it.
One-tooth: These are the roundest glasses they make. You can't get anything rounder than this.
Me: Look at my glasses. They're round, right? I just got them. They're just bigger than I want; the store online I got them from had tons of pairs, I was just hoping to get some locally.
One-tooth: Your glasses aren't round at all. Those are teardrop shaped. You can't get round glasses.
OK, so that was kind of weird, because I could swear that mine were round. I took them off and looked at them carefully and as you can see from the scan below (with a perfect circle superimposed in green), they really are round.
One-tooth would have nothing of it though.
Me: I'm pretty sure these are round, I mean, look at them!
One-tooth: No, they're not. They don't make round glasses.
Me: Well, they look round to me… Anyway, do you have a catalog I could look at, maybe I could order a set?
One-tooth: No, we don't have catalogs. The head office just sends us whatever they think is right.
At that point a cop came in and started looking me up and down kind of funny and I decided to leave. One-tooth had been really nice to me, so I don't think she was lying to me or trying to screw me over — I think that she was just insanely stupid… But I really didn't feel like getting tossed out of the mall for arguing with some moron over what a circle is.
I went to another glasses place a few doors down and had a similar conversation…
Me: Do you have round glasses? I'm looking for a set kind of like the ones I'm wearing, but with smaller lenses.
Too-much-makeup: Oh, they don't make round glasses.
Me: Look, I'm wearing some. Obviously they exist.
Old and friendly: Well, we have these Alfred Sung ones at the front; those are round.
Too-much-makeup: Here they are — would these do?
While Alfred Sung does make some nice wire-frame round glasses (I owned a pair until the dumb dog ate them), the ones that Too-much-makeup showed me were oval teardrops, with really heavy frames. It was clear that I was dealing with monkeys wearing human suits.
Me: By round I mean shaped like a circle.
Too-much-makeup: Oh! Like the ones you're wearing. You can only get those at flea markets and yard sales.
I couldn't take it any more. Realizing why I avoid the mall, I wandered over to the gym and dropped off a copy of the ModCon book for my trainer and headed home… I think I'm going to head over to the Sand Bar now… I hear they let sixteen year olds drink.
