Cheap Eyeglasses, Sure, But How Do You Get a Prescription?

I have no problem believing this dude got decent glasses for under $100—millions of people wear glasses and it’s not like the materials are horribly expensive. His blog post recommends two different online eyeglasses stores, Zenni Optical and Goggles4U. And the glasses he got in the mail (nearly a month after he ordered them) are perfectly wearable, with all the anti-glare and fancy titanium trimmings.

So I’m ready to buy, except… How does a person get their prescription for cheap? Every time I”ve ever gotten mine from an eyeglasses store they refuse to let me have a copy of my prescription and I have no insurance so I really don’t want to pay an optometrist to run the tests (that would ruin the savings).

Is there a sneaky way I can get my eyes checked without paying for it?

Eyeglasses Stores are for Suckers [3mew.Wordpress]

Update: Turns out my optometrist is required by law to give me my prescription. Looks like I’ll be making an angry call today. But the question stands!