These glasses are oven-baked, not fried. PHOTO COURTESY OF DR. CHRISTINA DIXON.
YOU SEE YOUR PATIENT walking into the office with trepidation and a familiar grimace and you know just what it means: lost or broken glasses.
As you work to solve the problem, you hear all kinds of explanations, from the plausible to the far-fetched.
The best are those that just have to be true, because how could you make this stuff up?
Take a look at some of our favorite submitted stories from the communities of Overheard Optometry and ODs on Facebook.
1. Patient: “I ran over my glasses with my car.” – Dr. Sara Erlich, Hackensack, NJ
2. Patient: “My dog sat on my glasses.” – Susan Klein Friday, Optica, Natick, MA
3. Patient: “I opened the case and they were like this.” – Julie, Calgary, AB, Canada
4. Patient: “I flushed it down an industrial-strength Bank of America toilet.” – Dr. Beth S., New York, NY
5. Optometrist: “How did you break these?”
Patient: “I was playing soccer.”
Optometrist: “Oh, took a ball to the face?”
Patient: “Uh, no, I gave them to my mom and she put them in her pocket and sat down on them.” – Dr. Mark Foust, Eye Contact Vision Center, Rock Hill, SC
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6. Patient: “I need new glasses. Mine are now oven-baked, not fried.” – Dr. Christina Dixon, Eagle Eye Vision Center, Stafford, VA
7. “[The patient] went to throw some garbage in the dumpster and heard an odd noise. She opened the dumpster and out jumps this angry rabid squirrel that attacked her face. Ended up scratching the lenses terribly and she fell, which lead to the frames getting mangled.” – Dr. Nick Jankowski, Mt. View EyeCare Center, Vancouver, WA
8. Patient: “My cat ate my glasses.” – Dr. Nick Jankowski, Mt. View EyeCare Center, Vancouver, WA
9. Patient: “I haven’t seen my best friend in many years. We decided to have a glass of wine on my front porch. What comes next, I found myself running down the street in my birthday suit in the rain in the dark and lost my glasses in the process. There was no way I was going to walk around my neighborhood the next day or ever find it again.” – Dr. Lan T. Nguyen, Optometrist, Round Rock, TX
10. Optometrist: “How did your glasses break?”
8-year-old patient: “My brother stepped on them.”
Mom and patient begin to laugh.
Optometrist: “What’s so funny about your brother stepping on your glasses?”
Patient: “I was wearing them when he stepped on my face.” – Dr. Paul Woolf, Woolf EyeCare Center, Gilbert, AZ
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11. Patient: “I was on a party bus last night and my buddy put them on the radiator [and melted them]. Can you fix them?” – Jenna Gilbertson, McCulley Optix Gallery, Fargo, ND
12. Patient: “I am here because my glasses aren’t fitting anymore. Can you fix them for me?”
Temples in an almost unfixable angle.
Optometrist: “Well, that’s going to be hard to fix. May I ask what happened?”
Patient: “Nothing. It just happened like this.” – Dr. Marianne Lindenberg, The Netherlands
13. Patient: “I flushed them down the toilet.” – Megan Korte, Eye Institute East, Columbia, MO
14. Patient: “A parrot ate them.” – Amanda Wiseman, Primary Eyecare Associates, Sidney, OH
15. “I had one who claimed that she picked up the specs on Monday and didn’t touch them for two days and then she opened the case and the lens had a massive crack. This crack could be felt on the other side. Sounded like magic.” – Aruba Ahmed, optometry student
16. Patient: “I sneezed and then my glasses fell off!” – Sanne, Hoofddorp, The Netherlands
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17. “They were carrying their baby when the baby took the glasses off the [patient’s] face and threw them across the room.” – Ana, FL
18. Patient: “Hi, I need to replace my glasses. Can you check if I’m still eligible for the warranty?”
Optometrist: “Yes, it’s been about six months. Just make sure to bring the old pair.”
Patient: “Well, I lost them. Why else would I need a new pair?” – Dr. Movses D’Janbatian, Brand Optometry, Glendale, CA