choosing spectacles

Hi there

Today, I went to buy a new pair of glasses.

I started looking through the racks at Specsavers at 10.30 a.m.  I finally left the shop, without having selected any frames, at 2 pm.  I was exhausted from doing so many laps around the shop, from standing for so long with a bad knee, from trying on hundreds of pairs of glasses.  Besides, the shop assistants had started to whimper pitifully when I insisted they line up with placards numbered 1 to 10 and rate each choice of frames as I paraded past them (I'm joking.  Maybe).

Every time I found passable frames, an assistant would tut-tut:  "It's not quite you, is it?

"It isn't?  I thought it was me.  Me likes them."

"No, no.  The frame sticks out too far at the sides of your face.  Read that number on the arm of the specs:  52?  Your face only needs a 49 or 50."

My face warranted a low number?  I didn't know whether to be mortified or deleriously happy.

"I want something unusual," I said as I pouted and posed in front of a mirror.  "Something colourful and lightweight.  Perhaps with a pattern at the sides?  I don't want to look like Clark Kent, or an owl. Or someone from 1965 - been there, done that, wore these exact same frames then... "

I caught the bus to another Specsavers branch and, for an hour, tried on more frames.   I came home glasses-less.  The hunt continues next week.  How many Specsavers shops are there in New Zealand.....?