Bring back the workhouse
Another sign of growing old is that my eyes need testing a bit more often than usual.
I don’t think I had a single eye test between the ages of eighteen and forty. My sight was grand so I didn’t need one.
Lately though, I have been having problems. I have been getting headaches, and it has really been pissing me off so I went for a checkup. Sure enough, the sight had changed over the last couple of years, so I need a new prescription. They said that the change was the probable cause of the headaches.
After the test, I went off and got a mortgage, and returned to select frames and lenses and everything. I ended up paying out more than my parents paid for this house. Seriously!
I asked them when the glasses would be ready, as I wanted them as soon as possible to stop the headaches.
They said it would be about seven working days. That was grand. Only a week to wait.
Today is a Bank Holiday. Because of this, I have to wait longer for my glasses, and have to suffer another day of headaches.
For fuck’s sake! Don’t you get enough days off during the year?
You lazy bastards are lying in bed while I am suffering.
It’s bad enough that we are entering a recession, but you fuckers decide to do nothing today for no reason other than you feel like a day off.
What about me and my headaches? Have you no sympathy?
Furthermore, my pension depends on the state of the stock market. While you lot laze around in bed, share prices are falling.
While you lot scratch your arses in bed, I am suffering.
Have you no conscience?
No they don’t! They are a bunch of wankers! 🙂 Had to get a mortgage? Jaysus! What kind did you get – Chanel, D.G., Vertu, Mont Blanc, or even Lafont’s?!
They told me a week as well on my new one’s. It took two weeks and one day!!! Some eejit in the lab managed to break one of the lenses, so they had to start all over again!
Eh? I’m not in bed and I’m not scratching my arse either (well for the moment anyway!)
I got a new pair of glasses three years ago and they were ready later that day. Good old specsavers. I remember when I had to get my first pair and they took over a week from a local optometrist.
JD – I don’t know what kind they are. Why can’t you get a decent frame that isn’t ‘designer’ these days? I bet yours cost a fraction of what I had to lash out!
Robert – I’m glad to hear it. I trust you are working hard to raise share values to save my pension?
Herself got her glasses the next day [bitch!] but mine are fancy ones with strange lenses and strange coatings and things.
Grandad, the only thing I’m trying to save is my jobseekers benefit!
So you will have some sympathy with my cause, then? You too are relying on those work-shy slackers?
you sure you’re just not down to “seeds and stems again”?
I thank god for the “eyemasters” of my world. $149 for two pair of bifocals, one regular tint and one sunglass tint. I do know what you are talking about though with the “designer” shit. about 11 years ago I paid almost $800 bucks for two pair and some nifty clip on sunglasses that fit both pair. Luckily my eyes didn’t change much and I didn’t lose them or break them and they lasted almost 9 years. my son goes through glasses like toilet paper so again I thank god for “eyemasters”
Hey, hey hey. I got new glasses a few weeks ago and they cost me a fortune too AND I have to work every bank holiday too!
Cry me a river!
While you’ll be at home taking it easy with the rest of the country, I’ll be putting up with tossbags who complain that they’ll need Tuesday off just to get over the weekend.
I was in the bank on Friday and the fetus behind the counter asked me what I was going to do for the weekend.
“Work” says I.
“Tough cheese” says him.
He then tried to defend himself by saying that he really appreciates the bank holidays. Where’s the restaurant holidays?
He annoyed me so much that I happy slapped him with his keyboard all the time shouting “When I was your age”.
Sorry Grandad, I’ve forgotten what the original point was.
But I do feel better.
Indeed I am Grandad – things are a bit on the tough side when one only has less than €200 per week so I can fully sympathise! And if current indications are anything to go by we will have another 100,000 or so sympathisers by the end of the year!
Prin – ‘seeds and stems’? $149?? *sigh*. For Herself I had to get two frames and two sets of lenses [normal and reading], and for myself, two frames and two sets of varifocals, both coated and one tinted as sunglasses. I would hate to shock you with the cost, but $149 wouldn’t even cover one frame!
Maxi – You’re getting as grumpy as myself 😉 Keep on the old job, or you’ll lose your touch.
Robert – We can’t have that. They all have to work to keep us in our accustomed lifestyle.
That’s one of the big fears!!
Maxi – Don’t worry. If the job don’t getcha, old age will!
My eyesight is better than superman’s… although his was crappy cos all he could do was see through things, which means he was blind effectively doesn’t it?
BBB – I often wondered about that. If he could see right through things, then they must be invisible? He must have spent his time walking into walls?
I always have children’s frames – they call them Harry Potter frames but I like to think of them as John Lennon style – they have no price here as kids glasses are free – so I am charged only £20 for the frames themselves. Then they add prisms and transition coated lenses and they cost £250 a pair! Crazy stuff – we are discriminated against because of our eyesight!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7_SmqSstKU&feature=related
this guy doesn’t really do it justice but you get the gist…”seeds and stems” is taken from this old Commander Cody and the Lost Airmen song. ’cause you know when you get down to the seeds and stems, not only is it sad, but smoking them gives you a blinding headache…or at least it did me…that’s why the reference 🙂 hey that might be a great idea for some young entrepreneur…to bring cheap glasses to ireland…eyemasters is a franchise 🙂 1 hour 149 bucks and your outta there!
For bloggers you guys are way behind the times. Nobody with any sense buys them from a store any more. You get them on line. I got apair for $39. Same quality as any from Lenscrafters costing hundreds. Sure, you have to get your prescription and type it in, but I found it real easy.
Kate – I tried to buy those but Herself saw me and started pawing the ground. That is a very dangerous sign, so I didn’t.
The problem in this country is that the government pay some or all of the cost for 95% of the population. The shops whack up their prices accordingly. Naturally, I’m one of the 5%. 🙁
Prin – I guessed that was what it was. Yes, indeed. Seeds and stems are mucky. I’m always very careful to remove them!
TT – There are some things I like to buy in person. That way if there is anything wrong, I can go back and smack ’em in the face.
Long a s you can see ’em.
I need a pair of the ones,that guarantees HindSight is 20/20.:)
Empathy Grandad, I’m still squinting through my old computer glasses because the only frames I like for my new script are Chanel and at $600, saving is required! Fwooaaar. *must dig out British passport and get some on the National Health* PS: take a panadol
TT – I just trow a punch in the general direction and hope for the best.
Popeye – But we all have perfect hindsight vision. It’s the foresight I worry about.
Baino – I had no need to save. I just dug into the savings fund, which means I have about six months shorter on my financial lifespan. And I am sick of Syndol!
Get my glasses for free because the state insurance pays for the icky frames and the exam. I wear contacts though because an hour or two in frames gives me headaches on the computer. So guess what they charge me extra for the contact lens exam- which is actually just measuring the diameter of my eye balls. After they add that- then they want to charge me $300 or $400 for contact lenses for a year when I can get a years lot of them for $80 or $90 online… They add $40 for whiffing my eyes behind a machine that says “your eye balls take a size whatever lens?” It’s a racket.