Derek Cardigan 7003

A long time ago I moved from Kansas to Arkansas and somehow lost my glasses in the shuffle on the way to moving into my college dorm. It didn't mean much because I wore my contacts near 100% of the time.

Though I learned pretty quickly the college life was a bit hectic and would require a new pair of glasses. I could be asleep at 11pm and get called repeatedly to go let in some fellow floor friends who were locked outside. Doing this frequently with no contacts was painful - I didn't realize how much my eyesight had collapsed while wearing no corrective lenses. I would have much preferred to roll out of bed and slip on my glasses and walk downstairs.

So knowing myself refusing to do anything remotely adult like I emailed home asking for my older prescription. I then stumbled upon coastal.com and found these Derek Cardigan 7003 glasses.

I immediately loved them for the odd reason that they had a division symbol and multiplication symbol on the front. So I tried an online order, plugged in my 3 year old contact prescription and these glasses arrived.

I didn't realize how cool these glasses were until a few years later when I met this girl at a concert. I never got any contact info from her, but then I heard from a friend that this girl was looking for a tall guy with math glasses and a koala shirt. I don't know why two random symbols on my glasses were so cool, but I really enjoyed these glasses. It further proved that when a girl trying to remember me called out the "math glasses".

A few days ago they slipped off my head, hit the ground and broke into pieces. I thought it would be time to buy a new pair and all would be okay. So I dug up my old email and coastal.com no longer existed, I dug around and found this archived message.

Dear Coastal community,

We're packing up and moving north, which means this is the last time you'll see us. We're forever grateful that you've trusted us to bring you the contact lenses and glasses that help you #SeeAmazing.

But don't worry - there's more to see! Get to know our friends: visit EyeBuyDirect for glasses and ContactsDirect for contact lenses.

Thanks for being part of our Coastal community.

Here's looking at you, kid.

Coastal

So I went off to EyeBuyDirect and searched and searched and could not find them. So I started with some Google searches which fueled my anger at Google and this situation.

The first result is the exact product I want, but Coastal has been shutdown since April of 2022. Clicking on that link just redirects to a homepage of clearly.com.au with no sight of those glasses.

It bugs me that the biggest search engine in the world accepts these misleading redirects that don't even go the product mentioned. I can understand a business wanting to redirect all traffic when taking over a business, but more than a year later to have product links not pointing to the product isn't fair. So I search and search on this new Clearly website and stumble upon a frame that looks pretty close to what I want.

I'm pretty happy at this point - I've found an iteration of my older glasses. They only ship to Australia so I may have to think of something, but then I click on the item.

I feel like I'm being pranked - Google results that show a dead website. Company search results that redirect to a sold out / no longer in production page. Why even bother showing these amazing glasses if they aren't available anymore.

So I am mad, but I think not all hope is lost. I head to my local eye doctor and look around at all the glasses they have and not a single pair of glasses look like they have math symbols on them. My criteria is odd - I want black glasses, full frame with math symbols on the front.

They think I am joking and sadly I am not as they bring glasses that look close to what I am describing. They aren't in the market of fixing glasses that aren't one of their official brands so I am out of luck. So I head off to eBay.

I put in a purchase for some parts and will attempt to revive these busted glasses on my own. If that fails - I'll have to come up with something else. Either way I've reinforced a learned lesson - if you like something greatly - buy more than one.