Later On

With eyeglasses, the divergence between the interests of the manufacturers and the consumer seem to diverge markedly. I have a pair of Takumi frames that I’ve used for years. I like them because the temple pieces use internal springs to stay tight and the clip-ons are magnetic. But one temple pieces is now useless: the internal spring broke. The frames were expensive—around $300, as I recall, and the lenses (which fit this particular frame) were $400: bifocals with a slab-off, high-index plastic, anti-reflection coated. So about $700 worth of eyeglasses is unusable because of a spring that cost less than a penny.

I realized last night that I could simply buy another temple piece of the right length. It wouldn’t even have to match the other temple-piece: who cares?

Only, of course, opticians—at least the one I went to—are basically order-takers. They don’t, for example, stock spare parts. And the reason for that is simple: manufacturers go to great lengths to ensure that a part of one frame will not work in another. Much better (for them) that you buy an entire new frame than simply replace the temple—and, of course, that involves buying new lenses, since they also take care to design unique lens shapes (the perimeter shape).

So I’m sitting here fuming and thinking that a string might work: tie a loop with a bowline knot, then feed the string through the temple attachment point and tie at knot to make the string the right length. It might work.

In the meantime, I’m working, blurrily, sans glasses.

UPDATE: My Santa Cruz optician is NOT an order-taker but an actual optician. I called, and though the frames are now out of print, he has lots of spare temple pieces that would fit. I’ll drive up this afternoon and let him have a go at it.