Birthday contact lens emergency averted

So, today's my BIRTHDAY and I've been having an amazing day... an awesome surprise present in my office (photos forthcoming), "Happy Birthday" sung at me across the hallway by my teammates, a fun lunch with friends, and a great dinner and movie planned with even more friends and family this evening.

Last Wednesday, I finally got around to ordering some more disposable contact lenses. I'm really terrible about over-wearing every pair I get. They told me my order would be in in a day or two.

This morning, one of my old lenses was irritating the heck out of me; I assumed I had a bit of fuzz in it or perhaps a scratch on my eye, which happens often enough and works itself out. As the afternoon wore on, it got more annoying, until finally I pulled the lens out to figure out what the heck was going on.

It had a little RIP in it.

No wonder it was irritating!

Never had one of THOSE before.

Well, hell, I didn't have any spare lenses, certainly not right there at work. Even my backup glasses were back at home... 25 minutes the opposite direction from work AND dinner.

I put the lens back in and tried to ignore those rough edges. No dice. By that point I was panicking about it tearing in half completely and the little fragments getting lost on my eyeball... or whatever.

As a last resort, I called my eye clinic and asked if they might HAPPEN to carry my prescription in stock in their supply of samples. "Toric?" "Yup." "No chance; those are special order only." Bummer. So I made plans to leave work early, drive back home, dig through the house for any old yucky lenses I might have forgotten to throw away, and as a last resort pick up glasses.

Great. We've got birthday dinner reservations at a restaurant with a patio, on one of the first beautiful sunny days of 2008 in this town, and I'm going to be stuck in my scratched-up winter glasses, no shades, squinting through dinner and then is it even worth it to try to GO to a movie after? Grumble. Glasses all weekend? Grumble. My own fault for putting off ordering backup lenses, but still.

I was about to head out for home when I glanced at my cell phone. Missed call. From University Vision Clinic. Like, 5 minutes prior. They couldn't've been calling me back... I didn't give my name when I called. In fact, I think they called WHILE I was talking to them...?! Voice mail: "Hi, this is [a different guy from the one I talked to] at University Vision Clinic. Those new lenses you ordered are in, you can pick them up any time."

WOOHOO!!!!

Took me like 30 seconds to get 'em and another 30 to put in a fresh pair.

Sunshine, dinner, movie, VISION. Might be the best birthday present of all. ;)