Staring Down Unfathomable Risk

I’m not a Libertarian.  I can see great value in the government keeping an eye out for the populous.  I’m think it’s often appropriate to concede and allow the state to protect the populous from it’s lesser tendencies, some of them anyway.  You won’t hear me crying out about the “nanny state.”  But savoring the precious air of freedom, here in China, my shoulders shudder when I consider the long reach of the state, back in the U.S.A. I’m gonna say it:  I don’t need the state to protect me against the improper usage of contact lenses.  Thanks, but I got this.

In the U.S. I’d need to get a prescription or present such a thing to the ophthalmologist in order to buy contact lenses.  If I walk into a “Lens Crafters” as I have in LaDeeDa Mall Number 107 in New York State, and present a box of disposable contact lenses saying, “I’d like to buy one of these, or indeed three of these, as I’m out,” I am prohibited from doing so, in my own best interest.  “Do you have a prescription here?”  “No, I do not.  I don’t live here any more.”  Shops won’t sell it to you unless you do an eye exam.  And their smug about it too as all entitled people tend to be.  If I could vote on Proposition 101-X: Allowing the public to assume the risk of potentially buying the wrong prescription of contacts, there on the ballot, I know precisely how I’d vote.

China has long since been ‘liberated’ and the people are free to buy contact lenses at their own risk.  I flew into Shanghai last night.  Across from The Le Meriden, at People’s Park, where I have stayed many times there is a Raffles Mall.  Down in the basement there is a Lens Crafters chain.  I’ve bought contacts lenses staring down unfathomable risk, with only my old box to vouch for my prescription.  And it’s usually ‘buy three boxes and get one free’, compounding my risk immeasurably. 

Turns out though that they’ve closed up shop, for good.  I got there late around 8:45PM hoping to catch them before the 9:00PM closing I’d assumed was pending.  Now I confronted the fact that I would need to make this current pair of contacts last through the night and into the next day.  There’d be no other place open past nine tonight. 

Looking on-line the next morning and as we all know, you have to be careful.  I found one, two and three Lens Crafter outlets that all proved to be closed.  It would appear they are undergoing some transitions in their Shanghai strategy.  I went to the company’s local web site and this seemed a bit more authoritative.  OK.  There’s an outlet on Huaihai Lu that should open in 40 minutes. I had no idea if this meant that would have contacts the way the other stored did, though I reckoned it was a good bet.  

They did.  I bought them from two young ladies who couldn’t have cared less about my prescription.  They assumed I knew what I was talking about and in this case, I did.  Sitting in the cab I immediately changed my lenses and considered myself lucky.