LOL! What if the OP is looking for a new toilet ??
You work 4-5 feet away from your monitor?* I was going to suggest to you and the OP that you take a laptop with you to test drive your glasses with… but you’d need to lug a huge monitor in, if you really sit on the other side of the room from your computer.
*I just checked. I’m less than 2 feet away from my computer screen. I can’t get much farther away in my office. At home, I can get over 4-5 feet away from my TV, but it’s a 55" model – a monitor that size would be expensive.
You know there are plenty of websites where you can buy glasses and input the prescription on your own, right? They don’t care if it’s officially expired or how you got the prescription in the first place. I don’t know how that works with insurance, if your insurance would pay for glasses, but there are some very affordable options. I got a pair of prescription glasses for about $20.
rotflmfao!
ETA: it’s funny because poop!
My problem with buying glasses isn’t the eye doctor, it’s all the come on promotions they offer that at the end of the day, never seem to apply to me because I’m near-sighted and require high index glasses so I’m not walking around with bottle caps, and the discounts never seem to apply to me. Same thing with contacts, its dirt cheap for everyone else, but I have to pay hundreds more because of a mysterious “astigmatism” . . . . something tells me everyone has one of these.
I’ve even on more than one occasion was assured by the saleswoman this would not be the case with the glasses, wanted to think about it, and of course when I came back to purchase, got a different saleswoman who laughed at me when I said the other saleswoman promised me the discount (and have emails from at least two chains apologizing to me and begging me to come back when I told them about this). A VERY VERY shady business, with criminally high profit margins with the suppliers in a cartel, by the way, as documented on 60 Minutes.
Another one? Dental services.
I have not visited a dentist in 8 years, and here is why.
Had a successful root canal in 1999; since then avoided going to the dentist, well, because of procrastination. But no detectable dental issues. After a few years, decided to start dialing up dentists in my area under my plan: FULL. NOT TAKING NEW PATIENTS. FULL.
FINALLY, I found one near my house taking new patients, and all i wanted was a checkup, and a tooth cleaning. They set me up with a “free” appointment after I filled out all my insurance forms, after the exam and ex-rays (not a big fan) the dentist went up and down about how I required a “deep teeth cleaning”. After about the fourth time asking she revealed I had zero cavities, after 10 years of not seeing a dentist!
I was then referred to a saleswoman in the next room, who enthusiasticically told me there as good news. While my “deep teeth cleaning” would cost a whopping $3600, the GOOD NEWS was my insurance would cover $2700, so “only” $900 would come out of my pocket. That’s great I said, what if we forgo that for now, and just get my teeth cleaned, for I’m sure about a hundred, two hundred or so?
Oh no, she told me, you have to have the deep cleaning first.
I walked out of her office, and haven’t stopped by a dental office since. I since found out that a “deep teeth cleaning”, IF needed, is about a $1000-1500 procedure. Guess that goes up depending on how much insurance you have . . . .
I brush twice a day, use top of the line products, and actually, thanks to many of them, my teeth are pretty damn white. Ill wait unto I get a toothache before visiting one of these fucking shysters.
I mean, your gonna run a game on my Chiclets? No wonder dentists are looked down upon by the medical profession as trash.:dubious::dubious::dubious:
The new toilet thing is easy, you just need to make sure you lay out a couple extra bucks for the heated seat.
Just go to Zennioptical.com or someplace similar. They don’t care about expiration dates. I’m pretty sure they also tell you how to calculate computer lenses from your prescription. Inexpensive, too! Try ordering a cheap pair online and see if you like them. 
I’m sorry to hear your story! I’ve actually heard a lot of bad stories about dentists which is why it’s so weird that apparently I have the best dentist out there, who never charges me anything extra, I go see her every six months for a cleaning and don’t pay a copay, etc. The teeth cleaning is also mostly painless, they are very gentle and careful and they don’t lecture me.
There are good dentists out there, I swear!
I guess I’m not fussy when it comes to mattresses. No matter the mattress or lack thereof, I fall asleep and wake up six or seven hours later.
A possible solution to the mattress problem is to actually resell the ones that have been tried. This would reduce costs since there’d be less waste in destroyed mattresses. And it could be a voluntary discount, so no one has to buy a used mattress if they’re squicked out by it. Buy the mattress brand new for the normal price or get a 25% discount on the one that was used for 3 weeks.
Yes, there is a possibility of bedbug contamination, but it’s not an insurmountable one. Eradicating bedbugs from a whole house, where they can hide in all sorts of places, can be challenging. But you can put an entire mattress in a heater or irradiator and kill 'em dead. Even bedbug eggs can’t live through 120 degrees for an hour. Hell, you don’t even need a special machine. Just re-wrap them in plastic and put the storage warehouse in Arizona.
I assume the real reason mattresses aren’t resold is squeamishness, which is kind of silly. We’ve all slept in hotel rooms and in other peoples beds before. People have had sex on those mattresses. So what?
You do not need a new prescription for eyeglasses. You can legally buy a pair of eyeglasses using any prescription you want, or without ever seeing an optometrist.
Now, a given optometrist’s shop may choose not to provide that service (because they make their money on optometrist’s services), but there are hundreds of places you can get new eyeglasses made to whatever specification you want.
Contacts, on the other hand, require a prescription. But while the prescription lasts just a year, the contacts are shelf-stable for three or four, usually. Just buy a bunch at once 
Problem is they are the ones hard to get an appointment with!
The solution is to check into a hotel for a few months and keep changing rooms every couple of weeks until you find the bed that gets you the best night’s sleep. Then buy that kind of mattress.
People involved in the mattress industry are some of the scummiest humans alive.
I did a little research after I put a nearly 30 year old mattress on Kijiji and people were at my house within 10 minutes of making the post. My phone rang almost continuously until I killed the for sale offer. This was in the midst of selling a bunch of other stuff with way more value that I almost had to beg people to take away, so it was really discordant to have people clamouring over an old mattress.
Turns out people illegally recycle them all the time. Disgusting.
Story from the UK
Story from Georgia
Story from Arizona
And on and on…
New mattresses are sold with such an unbelievable markup that even the legit manufacturers are thieves. High pressure sales people aren’t required to sell much else in your home, so the fact that mattress emporiums come with a used-car salesman type should give you pause.
This may vary by state. I’ve got a fine optician but they cannot make glasses from an old prescription. Eye exams are also good as the year go by because other problems can be found. (Cataract surgery next month!)
Concerning dental care–I met at least one creepy dentist when I had an emergency. Which required a root canal, so he had to make a referral. The endodontist was fine but I let things slide for* years*. Then realized I work near the UT Dental School–which has a big low-cost clinic & a small clinic staffed by the faculty. And the latter accepted my dental insurance. Yes, I got a deep cleaning–it had been years; but it was my first so the copay was cheap. Last visit, I had a “normal” cleaning & a filling replacement–and no copay. (This is not an ad–but not all dentists are sketchy.)
Getting back to the OP, my beef for the last 15 or so years is the way a lot of small hardware items are sold.
Way back when you would go to a hardware store looking for small item X. You would find X in a bin or drawer and try it out for fit or whatever right then and there. If it worked, you were happy and left knowing X would work. If it didn’t fit or work or whatever you put it back and tried the next size/shape up or down. You might not find your part but at least you knew it as you left.
With the hardware (and other) store trend to franchising many small things I need are packaged and I am unable to do trials. Sure, store personnel will usually allow me to open the package for said trial, but I hate being put in that position. Maybe that’s my real beef.
In fairness I will concede that most items in a hardware store are loose but it’s those times when I have to deal with packaged things that I go bonkers. And don’t get me started on having to purchase three X’s in the package when I only need one.
We’re in dire need of a new mattress but we’ve been putting it off because the prices are ridiculous. Somebody suggested that we just buy twins and put them together (we’ve got a split box spring). It’s probably not a bad idea. It’d also be less expensive, I think.
I really hate the bundling of cell phone plans. You have to have unlimited talk and text, plus more data than you need. I don’t talk or text much, and have no interest in paying for unlimited. And you have to have all three from the same company, preventing you from looking for deals.
Get one of those prepay phones. My brother gave me one that triples my minutes, so I renew it once a year for $100 and get 1200 minutes, of which I rarely use more than two or three hundred.