Rebellious Thoughts of a Woman

It is not okay that the head of my department, who just announced that she will be retiring in June, has hipper glasses than me. The one saving grace is that she didn’t splurge and get the progressive lenses so you can see that she is wearing bifocals, while mine are progressives so you wouldn't be able to age me by the horizontal line in the middle of my lenses. Other than that, the woman who wears three-inch bright yellow platform flip flops (and not just during Spirit Week) and colored opaque stockings with clogs and denim skirts is far ahead of the game than me in the “what’s on your face” department.

This is definitely not good. My glasses were hip, when I bought them two years ago. Now they are passé, and that is not making me happy. Especially when confronted with her Dolce & Gabbana’s. So, I decided to get me some hip glasses. I figured if it was one of the girls who needed a new item for her wardrobe I would moan and then buy it, so I decided to do the same for myself. Yes, splurge on myself. Hard to contemplate.

First I went to the cheapo store where I found my last two pairs of hip glasses for a lot less. But there was nothing there: nothing that bespoke “new and improved” and made me feel that I was making a step up the hip-o-meter and not merely treading water. I practically had tears in my eyes when I left that store, where else would I get the look I want at the price I want?

So to LensCrafters I went, which is where the hip soon-to-be-retiree got her glasses. Yes, I was a frame stalker. I found a pair in two different color options that I liked, so over to the saleman I went. He decided to make life difficult for me showing me his cost card for different types of lenses. For goodness sakes I said to him in my New York cum Israel tone (which means, no patience for you) when he showed me his laminated card with lots of columns and rows and numbers, just tell me how much the glasses would cost with the medium-priced lenses.

“$400.”

I felt that I needed to remind him about the 25% off something sale that was advertised all over the store.

“That is with the discount.”

There goes hip. There is no way that I am paying that much money for glasses. So I will need to go to the other cheapo frame stores where I have never found a frame I liked and hope that this time things will be different. For now, you’ll recognize me when I stand next to the retiring English teacher, I’m the one with the glasses that look like the older woman should be wearing, and she’s the one wearing the glasses that I should be wearing.

I wonder who’s going to replace her?