My Poor Shades

I got myself a new pair of sunglasses a couple weeks back. I was rather pleased with them until I realized that the lenses both had a distortion in the material, causing the image to be blurry towards the bottom of the lenses. Naturally, I brought the pair to the store and the storekeep tried to replace the lenses. Unfortunately, the new lenses turned out to be darker on one side than the other, and the store had no more spares, so back to the supplier it went.

I got the pair back and it seemed like the tinting was even while the image distortion was negligible. Lovely...till I realized that more light was coming out the bottom of the left lens relative to the right. I thought I had them on crooked, so I kept adjusting them without success. After examining the lenses, I realized that one was on crooked. It seems that the lens was marginally oversized for the frame. After another replacement at the store, it seems like the new batch has the exact same subtly oversized lenses. Back to the supplier it went.

I figure the fellas at the store have me tagged for a fussy customer already, but it is really quite unusual that standard issue stuff (mine were not prescription optics) could have such production variance. Given that they were made in France, I shall be a bigot and declare that French engineering leaves much to be desired =p