"Warby Parker" Wonderfulness

As promised, after sharing about my Sarah Grace Glasses Moment(s), here is a post about my new replacement glasses...

A few quick highlights:

• The glasses (lenses and frames) sell for UNDER 100!?! 
• For every pair sold, the company donates a pair to someone in need; they are like the Tom's shoes of glasses :) 
• They actually sell a monocle!!??!!! :) 

I could go on for days about how cool this company is and you should definitely check out their website but here are some awesome aspects of the company:

They do community development:

According to their website, almost ONE BILLION people don't have access to glasses which means "15% of the world's population is unable to effectively learn or work because they can't see clearly."

And the site says that glasses are one of the best tools to alleviate poverty since they can make someone 20% more productive!?!
A. Pair. Of. Glasses.
Gosh, how much we can take for granted.

BUT, Warby Parker doesn't just give glasses away, they have a sustainable model of empowerment for the people they are trying to help: they "train low-income women to sell affordable glasses in their communities. The model creates jobs for people in need, as well as the economic incentive to continuously provide glasses as their customers lose or break their glasses and change prescriptions." 

 

They are low-cost but high-quality: 

While most glasses today cost 100s of dollars, they sell extremely high quality products at under $100 by cutting out the middleman. Here is how they do it (taken from their site): 

 

One added bonus of this approach is they deal directly with you... aka you don't have to go to a store. 

This was one of the COOLEST purchases I have ever made. 

I pursued their website and selected my top 5 favorites.

Then they mailed them to my house free of charge with those 5 pairs (no prescription lens) for me to try on. 

I wore them around for a few days and got friends and family to offer their opinion. 

Once I had decided which pair I liked, I sent them my prescription and returned the 5 trail pairs. 

Then they mailed me my final pair with my prescription lenses. 

All of this done via the internet and delivered right to my door. 

Awesomness. 

Talk about customer service!?!

 

AND, to top it all off, they are artsy: 

 

 The names of the company and the glasses are inspired by literary figures: 

"We’ve always been inspired by the master wordsmith and pop culture icon, Mr. Jack Kerouac. Two of his earliest characters, recently uncovered in his personal journals, bore the names Zagg Parker and Warby Pepper. We took the best from each and made it our name. We hope your new glasses will provide all the style you need to travel your road with class, and their price will leave you with some extra cash to use on your journey."

And the unisex, chunky glasses are just fun and bold statement pieces. Check them out here. If you are one of the lucky ones who happens to have perfect vision, have no fear, you can support this company still because they sell sunglasses too ;)

Warby Parker is seriously one of the best companies I have ever heard of. 

And I speak from experience as I am currently sporting my Amber Nedwins right now ;)  

Sarah Grace Glasses Moment(s)

I had two pairs of glasses. And how many did I break? Oh, you guessed it: two.

And how many times? Five. Yes. Five times.

Below is the real-life, ridiculous story of yet another Sarah Grace moment.

Unexpected Ending: Break # 1

My glasses were by no means brand new (I got both pairs with a buy one get one free groupon or something like that in 2008) but they weren't exactly old either. I certainly didn't think that their days were numbered. 

That is why over Christmas break I was shocked one morning when I got up and they broke. Just as casually as anything, I was in the bathroom and when I tilted my head down to find my toothpaste in the drawer, they fell right off my face and on the way down, one of the arms came clear off the glasses. 

And, of course, it wasn't a simple screw that came out and could be easily repaired. No, it was the actual entire arm coming apart from the glasses frame. 

I was shocked and bummed BUT I had my alternate pair and so I figured I could make do with those. 

Well, I was wrong: 

Another One Bites the Dust: Break # 2

 Less than a week later - seriously - my other pair broke. I was in the attic putting away Christmas decorations when they slid off my face and kicked up a pile of dust. When the dust cleared and I found them lying there, they too had lost an arm. 

I couldn't believe it. 

When I contacted the store where I purchased them, they told me that the warranty was only good for a year so I couldn't have them repaired or replaced. 

Ugh.

As for buying a new pair, not so simple because... even though I am no longer a student, I am covered by my parents' insurance for everything but... drum-roll please... optical. Naturally.

Since there was now no way around it, I began the search for a new, affordable pair of glasses and, in the mean time, decided to go Martha Stewarty and make do with my current glasses by hot-gluing them together. I thought the clear, durable glue might be a little stronger than tape and less noticeable or fashionably-offensive.

Harmful Hug: Break # 3

Hot glue may have been stronger than tape but it wasn't stronger than a cadet. For my job, I work with the Citadel and for those of you who don't know, it is a military college. As a result, the students there are strong and when they greet me, they give me can-hardly-breathe-bear-hugs as a hello.

On my very first day back at work, after the long break, one of my cadets was a little too over-zealous in his hello and as he went in for a hug, I warned "Watch the glasses!"

Alas, it was too late. 

I heard a snap and I felt them fall. 

The first pair of glasses that broke had broken again; there they lay with the same severed arm.

Troubling Tape: Break # 4

I searched through my still-to-be-unpacked bags and couldn't find my alternate pair anywhere :/ So what did I do? I taped them. Yes, unfortunately, I didn't have a glue gun here in Charleston but what did I have? 

Duct tape. 

And that will always, always, ALWAYS do the job, right? 

I'm afraid not... at least not when Sarah Grace is involved ;) 

I had them taped up and though the silver hardly blended in with my purple glasses, the tape at least wasn't in the cliche-over-the-nose-geek position but instead on the side. I told myself that surely when I styled my hair towards that side of my face, the tape was hardly visible... Yes, that is what I told myself. Thank God for side-swept bangs ;) 

But, you won't believe what happened next. 

I still can't even explain it. 

The next morning, the tape and the arm that was attached by the tape were missing from my glasses. I looked all over the bathroom and all over my bedroom but it hasn't turned up, even now, over a week later. 

My only explanation - since I had left my glasses in the bathroom on the sink above the toilet - is that somehow, some way the arm possibly slipped in the toilet and was flushed away...? I don't even know if it is possible for an eye-glasses arm to be flushed down a toilet but I truly have no other feasible explanation other than I flushed the arm away.

Crushing Realization: Break # 5

At this point I was pretty desperate. I called my mom and told her that I had destroyed one pair of glasses, three different times in the time-span of about 10 days. 

While I had ordered a new pair (more on that in a later post), I couldn't function with a broken, armless pair of glasses for another week. I was hoping I could beg her to meet me halfway between my home and Charleston to give me my alternate pair of glasses which I still had not found, even after unpacking my bags. 

I concluded that, even though I thought I had packed them up with me, I must have left them in my bathroom at home. But, heavens no. Sarah Grace wouldn't do something as simple as that!

Upon inquiring about my other pair of glasses, my mom said that she actually had found a lens in the front yard. 

That's right, people. A lens. Not a pair of glasses. ONE LENS. 

When she mentioned it to my dad, he said that he actually had found an eyeglasses arm in the driveway. 

It seems that the glasses must have fallen out when I was loading up my car to leave.

And where did they fall? 

Not to the side of my car. 

Not on the porch on the way out the door. 

Nope.

They fell right behind my car. 

I ran over my other pair of glasses!?!

Crushed. Them. To. Pieces.

So basically, I was SOL. 

2 pairs of glasses broken 5 times in approximately a week and a half. 

Go big or go home, I always say... but this may take that to new heights ;) 

Fortunately, I found an awesome new pair of glasses from an amazing company which I will blog about soon! 

Until then, I'm just wearing my contacts as long as possible each day and then managing with my lop-sided, one-armed, non-crushed-by-a-car glasses ;)

2013 Resolution: Ending Rape

There have been 2 very disturbing rape stories in the news lately.

1) A gang rape in India
2) The teenage girl in Steubenville

A Gang Rape in India

 This 23 year old woman - The. Same. Age. As. Me. - was gang-raped so severely that she ultimately died.

She had just finished watching a movie and was accompanied by a male friend... something I - and many of my friends - have done countless times, thinking we would be safe.

She, however, was not.

When getting onto a bus (still with her friend) she was gang-raped and beaten (her friend was also beaten) to "teach her a lesson" since her attackers felt she should not have been out with a man at night, even though it was only 9pm.

6 men raped and beat her for hours before dumping her and her friend, naked, on the side of the road.

Horrible.

And they are not the only victims.

• When I heard this story on CNN, they reported that in New Delhi alone, a woman is raped every 18 hours. EVERY 18 HOURS!?!
• Further, "official data show that rape cases have jumped almost 875% over the past 40 years -- from 2,487 in 1971 to 24,206 in 2011." (CNN)
• During protests begun by outraged Indian citizens calling for safety for Indian women since the original rape story, 2 other gang-rape victims have been found: a 10 year old girl who was raped, killed and dumped in a canal and another 14 year old girl who was raped by 4 men. (thestar.com)

This is absolutely disgusting.

Perhaps an even more disgusting story is the case in Steubenville:

The Teenage Girl in Steubenville

If you haven't heard of this case yet, you soon will because the online hacktivist group, Anonymous, has gotten involved making it viral.

Though this is alleged now, it was highly documented with teenagers' use of today's technology via twitter, instagram, etc. in what The New York Times called "a graphic, public diary."

Basically, 2 hometown hero football players paraded around a 16 year old girl to 3 different parties even though she was too drunk to resist or respond.... or even remember much of the evening. She was so drunk that she vomited several times and could not walk. They removed her clothes, touched between her legs, tried to get her to perform oral sex, took pictures and video of her and possibly urinated on her. Other students referenced "Rape Me" by Nirvana and described her as "dead" or "asleep" and other very awful things recorded in a video from someone's phone.

I think the most upsetting thing about this story is how no one interfered on her behalf!?! 

"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing."

                                                                                         - Edmund Burke

Where were the good men (and women) when this evil was happening?

Oh, don't worry. They were just busy with social media tweeting, texting and instagraming this episode. WHAT???? Did social media suck away their souls, conscience and heart?

I have no idea how they could have not only stood by to watch this but also took time to document it.

Fortunately, technology can be used for good. As I mentioned, Anonymous has gotten involved and they are gathering evidence from the internet to put pressure on the town and the courts to take this case seriously, even if it does involve some of the town's favorite football players. Equally, a Steubenville blogger also has been using technology to try to seek justice in this case; you can follow her continuing coverage here.

How can teenage boys and men do this? What on earth gives them the notion that they have the right to a woman's body like that? To touch and violate and abuse?

How do we stop this??? 

I know this isn't a happy post but rape is not a happy thing. And though these few women have gotten a ton of coverage and support, there are countless more who have been violated but don't have this much coverage or support - and more still who don't have any because they never report their rape.

I struggled with how to end this post. I remembered an essay I read by Andrea Dworkin where she called for One Entire Day Without Rape. I wrote a post about it almost 2 years ago and she wrote the essay in the early '80s. However, rape continues.

Hopefully, for 2013 we in America and India and the whole world over can adopt her resolution for One Entire Day Without Rape. As a baby step at the very least, a beginning, to a world where 16 year old girls and 23 year old women and any woman will be safe.

More information on India: 1, 2, 3, 4.  And on Steubenville: 1, 2.