Nothing can throw life out of balance like finding a $63.80 store credit on Zenni, that online site where you can buy fashionable glasses for cheap. The good news is that the “progressive” lenses I returned actually made their way back. But now I have to order a replacement.

Everyone wearing artsy frames seems to have bought them online at someplace like Zenni.  I compliment them, and they hasten to respond:  “For only $20.” But when I go Zenni-shopping, nada.

The online frame-shopping experience is a big ask: picking out frames, fitting them via online camera, imagining how they’ll look in person, and finally entering the prescription – all things the optometrist used to do but at a cost:  $400+ instead of $20.  By the time they arrive (standard shipping), I don’t even remember what I chose, but I’m sure it was more fashionable than what I got.

Last time, I tried picking out something my jazzy friends would have liked:  a checkerboard of primary colors. After measuring and entering all the numbers, I got a warning.  “Your PD (aka pupillary distance) is smaller than minimum PD of the frame, but we can process with an extra charge.”  $10 more, it turned out, for some unspecified equipment adjustment.  Not much, I thought, and I went along with it, only to discover when the glasses arrived, that my nose felt the heft of two pairs, not one.

I did not send them back, though, which would have only added to my credit, so I keep them in my purse reserved for short trips to large box stores where I have to read small print across the room. I hope some admiring soul will say, “Wow! Those glasses.”

And I will say: “Only $30!”