I dunno. To me this is kinda like buying a new pair of shoes; just because you’ve decided you like them doesn’t mean ten other feet haven’t been in them before yours. Everybody tries on shoes before they buy them. Ditto for clothing, hats…pretty much anything you wear on your person has probably been on someone else’s before you. Including sunglasses.
It’s never crossed my mind to say, “Hey, do you have a ‘fresh’ pair of these khakis in the back? In this same size? I don’t want to buy the ones that other people have tried on before.”
well, you generally wash clothes before you wear them, which removes any residue from someone trying them on before you. (aside: residue, eeeeeeew)
what are you supposed to do with sunglasses? float them in a tub of bleach?also, it’s much easier to bend something out of shape on glasses, or scratch a lens, than it is to structurally damage a shoe.
Exactly. With clothing, basically all you can do to screw it up is try on clothing that is way too small and stretch it out of shape. Unless you have knife blades sticking out of your elbows, or your body is oozing something that will stain, you’re not going to do any damage to it.
Sunglasses and the like are much more delicate. Or at least, need to be handled more carefully. You can bend the frames, overextend the hinges, scratch the lenses, all that.
The retail store I work for has us display from two to ten items of every SKU in the place…if we discounted things that were on display at some point in their lives, we’d go broke. If something gets scratched or damaged, we have to write it off. Only rarely can we give a modest discount on a shop-worn item. But if you choose an item that is displayed, we try to give you a new one in a box first, because otherwise we’d just have to open another one to display. The problem we have is with people who want us to open up ten or twelve of an item so they can find the most perfect, blemish-free item…and they always seem to come in to do this when we are busy. And the blemishes they find are usually microscopic, and to be expected in inexpensive items (let’s say, mostly $10 to $50 items…not top of the line stuff, just mass-produced stuff)
I don’t buy sunglasses from the Sunglasses Slut, but I have purchased other items there. I have observed people buying the glasses on display. The employee cleans the lenses and inspects them before he passes them to the customer to do the same. If there are no scratches, what is the problem?
As far as your comment about floating them in bleach goes, are you serious? Most people got over the whole other people got cooties thing in the third grade. Fourth grade at the latest.
Don’t most peoples’ feet have way more “residue” than the rest of their bodies? If you wash new clothes before you wear them, what do you do with the shoes? What about those gorgeous patent leather heels you bought? Are there really people out there who wash brand-new shoes? And if they don’t, why are they worrying about sunglasses and T-shirts?
Exactly. Ditto for sandals. If I’m not going to wear the shoe with hosiery–and I don’t own any hosiery so that’s never–I don’t try it on with footies or socks. And even if I did, I guarantee the dozen other women who tried on these shoes before me didn’t all wear footies.
And if you’ve already tried on the shirt/pants/whatever before you buy them, you’ve already been “tainted” by whatever “residue” is in them. So washing them ASAP at home is a bit…too late, isn’t it?
I still stand by the notion that this is silly paranoia.
Spending $200 for a pair of sunglasses should qualify in its own right.
FTR, my pair of sunglasses are more than ten years old. Not a scratch on them. Of course, I treat them with the same respect I treat any glasses, prescription or not.
I pay at least $200 for frames and then prescription lenses on top. So worth it. Good strong frames, good lenses that don’t give me a headache. And my last pair, I’ve had for over 3 years - thats works out to $11.10 a month ($400 cost total frames and lenses)
Last spring when I went to go buy a new shotgun at Bass Pro Shop, the only one left of the model I wanted was the display. Didn’t bother me, though. No discount either.
And I know people with $200 sunglasses that have them much longer than 4 years. Mine are military issue…the guy who gave them to me wore them much longer than four years in the military…I can’t afford $200 sunglasses myself.
I have a theory … well, more of a hypotenuse than a theory, that the hinges on glasses have a set number of cycles before they loosen beyond repair. The $15 pair I pick up off a rack at Target because I left my good ones behind don’t bother me - they only have to last until I get home and throw them away, but a good pair of Gargoyles lasts me many years. The flexing and hinge wear and micro abrasions and etc. will happen eventually, but by golly I want to be the one wearing them out.
I don’t really like to buy a new firearm that had someones grubby mitts all over it. The dickwads that spin cylinders and slam empty actions annoy me a bit.
Clothes, not so much. I wash before I wear anyway; but guns, electronics, and sunglasses I want unsullied. And if I’m paying new-car prices, I don’t want more than about 10 miles on it.
