communication gap

I wanted to get a new pair of glasses before I come home (by the way, are big nerdy 80s glasses back in style in the US?). So I parked in an area with a bunch of eyeglass shops and started looking. Eyeglass shopping is a bit challenging because a large percentage of the eyeglasses are very cute. And I am not a cute person. Also even seemingly non-cute glasses have overly cute arms on them.

So at the first place, they asked me if I needed them to read. That was a bit of a blow. I said no, I need them to see...uh... far away things. Looked around a while, went to the second place, found an awesome pair of sunglasses- and again, do I need them to read. Who uses sunglasses to read? And do I really look like I'm close to 50?

I took a detour to the Sogo Department Store to buy a new tub of Clinique All About Eyes, which I had run out of and I thought I could last until I got back home but seriously people. Everyone had been asking me lately if I'm tired (nope, just out of the good eye cream) but I needed to do something about this reading glasses thing. The 3rd eyeglass place, they spoke English and realized right away I don't need reading glasses, so I was happy and figured that just goes to show you how awesome that eye cream is.

Back to the second place to take care of business and get those sunglasses, and after an extended conversation and some blank looks... it turns out the phrase for reading books (du shu) sounds an awful lot like the word for your vision prescription. Oh.