Miasmatic Review

New Glasses

I've been re-enacting for years. The one thing that has been seriously wrong with my gear has been my glasses. I wear them all the time and they weren't period at all. Most of the events turn a blind eye to this because they understand that people need glasses and as long as they looked close enough, that was fine.

For at least 4 years now you've been able to get period style glasses. One of my friends whom I've referred to as Wind In His Hair (WIHH), He plays a native and no that's not the name he goes by, gave me a pair that were once his father's. I had said something last October that I was going to purchase a set. He told me not to as I could have his father's old pair. They were the exact same ones I was planning on ordering. Yes, there is another pair that are actually for my time period, but the temple bars don't go over the ears. Everybody I've spoken to about them says the same thing, They fall off your head if you start to sweat.

Today I took them to Lens Crafters to have my prescription fitted in them. When the sales girl came to ask if she could help me, I produced the glasses and said I needed lenses fitted for these. The look on the girl's face when she looked at them was classic. She looked at the glasses, looked at me, looked back at the glasses and said, "I need to take these in the back to see if we can even fit them." She was gone 15-20 minutes talking to the technician that would make the lenses. Finally a lady comes out and says, "We can do it." My friend J-man was with me and we were joking they were arguing over who was going to come out and tell the burly guy with the funny glasses that they couldn't do it.

When the lady started taking measurements she asked me what kind of glasses they were. I explained they were replica 1785 glasses. She almost dropped them. In her concentration to enter the information into their computer she didn't hear the word "replica". After I explained they are $30.00 frames, she calmed down. Of course she added a caveat that if the frames were damaged they would not be responsible for them as they could not replace it. Fine, what ever.

I swung back there after work and picked them up. Now I'm not saying that I like these and the way that I think they are stylish. Nope, they are ugly as sin. Hell they look pretty stupid. They pinch and are uncomfortable. I asked if they could be adjusted and they tried a little, but were afraid to do more because the tech thought they would break. Since I've picked them up, I've been wearing them. I just want to make sure they got the prescription right, and it seems that they did. But boy do they give you tunnel vision and my peripheral vision is shot to hell.