How to choose a pair of glasses

From the very first day I met him, till this day, nearly 22 years later, my husband has not had, nor does he really care to develop, much fashion sense. It's not that he doesn't look nice and relatively in step with the times, because he does. However, that is all because of me. If our marriage had not happened, he would probably still be wearing T-shirt's, Nike basketball shoes and Levi 501's. He would be the first to admit it. The style of his hair, the cut and color of his clothes, the size of his glasses, etc., are "sick", as my 17 year old daughter would say, because I don't want us to look like those parents that are forever stuck in the 80's. Now, I am painting him with a broad brush, because there have been certain times when he has had an opinion, which I find always refreshing, but for the most part, his least favorite thing to do is browse through a store looking for anything fashion related, either for himself, our children, or the home. Once items or clothing have been narrowed down to a reasonable amount of choices, he is then very willing to give an opinion, and we almost always end up seeing eye to eye (or he is just a very smart man). This is not to say that he doesn't want to look "good", it just is a fact that his idea of "good" would have remained in the 80's if it wasn't for me.


Which brings me to my story. Recently we took a trip to California with our entire family. I say entire, because we actually were able to have our married, 21 year old daughter join us, and I had just given birth to our baby girl, literally days earlier. In preparation for this trip, Shawn decided that he needed to get new prescription sunglasses as well as a new Rx. As most things happen in our family, we waited till 2 days before departure to make this happen. Shawn and I set out for a morning of glasses shopping. We got his new Rx and hit several eyeglass stores, finding success at the mall for his sunglasses. Throughout this adventure, however, we had found a deal at a previous store for replacing his current frames with new lenses. This process would mean that he would need to leave his frames with this store for 2 weeks, and that would leave him without glasses for our trip. So, he decides to purchase an inexpensive frame and have them fitted with his Rx, so that he could wear these for the next 2 weeks. By this time in our adventure, I was pooped, after all, I had just had a baby. I asked if I could stay in the car while he figured everything out and he could come and get me if he needed me. Being the wonderful hubby that he is, he of course said yes. What seemed like minutes later, because I had fallen asleep, Shawn was back in the car, beaming that he had accomplished it all. I was delighted for him and we drove home. He mentioned something about the glasses that he had chosen and I asked if he had wanted my help, but he said he knew I was tired and wanted to let me sleep. Right then, I had an uneasy feeling, but after nearly 22 years of marriage, surely he had picked up something. Two hours later he left to pick up his new glasses and leave his current pair there for replacement. He walked into our kitchen and I swear, the 80's (or maybe more the 70's) had come back. My dear, wonderful hubby, had chosen some of the largest frames I had ever seen in 20 years. It was the most hilarious sight. Needless to say our oldest daughters, myself and Shawn had the biggest laugh. The only people who thought the glasses looked nice were my parents, go figure.



As an addendum, we were able to get these glasses exchanged for some I could look at for the next 2 weeks, and funny enough, when we went back to the store and picked the new frames, Shawn commented that he had liked them earlier, but couldn't decide, and ended up with the large ones. Crazy how things we grow up with as teenagers just never quite leave our brains.