Progress with an update

pro·gres·sive  (pr-grsv)

adj.

1. Moving forward; advancing.

2. Proceeding in steps; continuing steadily by increments: progressive change.

3. Promoting or favoring progress toward better conditions or new policies, ideas, or methods: a progressive politician; progressive business leadership.

4. Progressive Of or relating to a Progressive Party: the Progressive platform of 1924.

5. Of or relating to progressive education: a progressive school.

6. Increasing in rate as the taxable amount increases: a progressive income tax.

7. Pathology Tending to become more severe or wider in scope: progressive paralysis.

8. Grammar Designating a verb form that expresses an action or condition in progress.

I am going to whine.  Look away if the sound (or should it be sight) of a 50 ish (heavy on the ish) woman whining disturbs you.  

I have bifocals.  Have had them for over 10 years.  I'm comfortable with them.  I wore the Executive cut, Benjamin Franklin's original invention.  I had clear vision all across the top and all across the bottom.  It was lovely. Crisp clear all the way to outside the lens.

The last time I got glasses I had to shop hard to find a place with an executive cut.  This time, executive cut is not available unless you went with regular plain plastic lenses.  You know, the kind that only fit in the truly awful looking frames and are heavy and thick and ugly.  

I'm not tremendously vain.  I'm not tremendously picky, but I have enough trouble with my vision that clear vision and decent lenses matter a great deal. So this lack of proper executive cut lenses irritates me.  I didn't have a lot of options outside of ugly. Of course I could have gone for that hinky little half moon, where you end up bobbing and weaving and looking like a dunce as you go through your day.   I let myself be talked into graduated lenses.  

It is NOT good.  I am not sure at all that it will work for me.

I am going to hope it is just a pair of very badly cut lenses. If not, heaven help me.    

Really, you should be able to read a single column in the newspaper without having to turn your head. There should be a spot somewhere, front and center one would think, where you could actually read the letters on the page. You should be able to read signs along side the road before you pass them.  You should have some peripheral vision, not just a blur.  If I wanted blur, wouldn't it be easier to just take my glasses off?   

This is so far far beyond bobbing and weaving that bobbing and weaving to see clearly sounds pretty darn good. 

Hey cool.  I've been playing around and you know when they work the best?  If I take them off and turn them 45 degrees!  Cool.  Hey and you know what?  I can read my keyboard and screen of my laptop at the same time if I hold the whole frame about an inch away from my nose!   It makes me queasy though.  I'm going to stop playing.

When I left the store today, I told the lady I would try them.  I know it's a big change going from good old ordinary bifocals to progressives.  But a sucky pair of lenses is still sucky and not seeing will not be cured by waiting a week.  Glasses should feel good if they are cut right and if they are centered right and your eyes should have almost no adjustment time whatsoever.  I have had it happen twice in my life.  It was lovely and whatever this is, good isn't it.  

Or is this how it works with progressives?  If it is, they are named poorly.  Because I fail to see anything progressive about this.  Indeed, I fail to see at all.

OK, I am done now.  Move along.  Nothing to see here.

Updated to add:

I went back to Walmart and they said the glasses were perfect.  She would reorder the lenses, but not give me the difference back for the much, much less, $200 less pricey lenses.  So I returned the whole darn thing and I have to talk to the manager if I want the same frame to see if he will 'let' me buy from them.  So good luck Walmart I won't go back to you again.

And they used to be so good before they fancified the store.