Maggie, you forget that I worked as an optical technician at Sears Optical and JCPenney Optical for five years (we were licensed businesses within the stores). I stopped wearing my RGP hard contacts about a year ago. I just didn't wear them often enough. I'm currently wearing a pair of progressives that are about 20 or more years old. I just found out that I actually have vision insurance for the first time in my life. It paid for my exam and substantially towards a new pair of progressives. If I hadn't had insurance, I would have gone directly to JCPenney Optical when they had one of the sales that worked best for me. I ordered the pair of progressives through my optometrist because I wanted a better lens (the three different progressive lenses sold by US Vision are adequate, but not the best available) than would be available at JCP Optical. I would order single vision glasses online, but would never consider ordering progressives. For correct placement of the lens in front of the eye, it takes someone actually measuring segment height. (I know my PD — pupillary distance.) And an online optician couldn't phyiscally fit the glasses — progressives usually need a little tweaking. (And I know of no optometrist's office that would fit a person with the glasses they bought online.)

I'm going to take my Rx, though, when the sale is right and buy a second pair (for fashion reasons as much as to have a good spare pair; my old prescription is just enough out of whack that I have a headache after driving for any length of time) at JCPenney Optical.

And I have multiple pairs of single vision glasses for back ups as well.

Back when I got that 20+ year old pair of progressives (which my then optometrist was insisting on), I could never get used to them because I wore my contacts 99% of the time. (I'm nearsighted, so the contacts were for distance; I used cheap readers for closeup.) But a few months ago the pair of single vision distance glasses I was wearing to drive got misplaced. I rummaged in my nightstand drawer and for some reason the only pair I could find was the progressives. I needed to go somewhere, so put them on not expecting much, but, voila! I could see both distance and closeup and everywhere in between with absolutely no problem whatsoever.