I Am My Father’s Daughter, And My Mother’s

For as long as I can remember, my Dad has habitually forgotten important details, usually when traveling. He left his pajamas in a hotel room, he forgot to pack dress pants when traveling to a funeral, he forgot where he parked his car and took the wrong train to pick it up...you name it, family lore is filled with these comical tales of my Dad's adventures in absentmindedness. I have often thought, "My Dad is a smart guy, how does he manage to do this kind of thing so often??"

Well today I found out. This morning I flew to Buffalo, NY to meet up with members of my family for my cousin's wedding. I even packed my bag last night--unusual--and left the dress I planned to wear on top of my suitcase so it would not get wrinkled. I remembered to get the dress dry cleaned in plenty of time, picked it up at the dry cleaner the other day. I thought about what I had packed just before I went to sleep last night, wondering if I should bring another dress just in case. I decided not to.

I ran into some traffic on my way to BWI this morning and had to find my way to the airport using some back road. I was impressed with myself when I not only figured it out, but made it to the gate just in time to board. When I met my family at the rental car counter, everyone seemed a little anxious to get going--we had a 90 minute drive ahead of us and didn't want to be late for the wedding.

We made it to the hotel with just enough time to change. I opened my suitcase and exclaimed, "Oh no! Someone took my dress!". I fully believed this statement for about two minutes...as Keely came over to inspect my bag and started thinking about a solution, I realized that no one had taken my dress-duh-I didn't check a bag. And that's when it finally hit me: I left the dress at home.

Keely placed a "dress emergency" call to the front desk, managing to get directions to the nearest Kmart even after saying "oh, you poor thing" upon learning there was no Target nearby. We dropped off Nicole, hopped in the rental car and made our way VERY slowly to Kmart.

When we first walked in, the clothing section seemed desolate and I was worried. We were already going to be late and I was trying to justify wearing jeans to a wedding. But then, with Keely's help, I found two dresses to try on, one by Sofia Vergara of "Modern Family."

The Sofia dress worked to my surprise, so I tore off the tag, piled my clothes in my arm and made my way to the register. Keely, of course, managed to find a bargain while I was in the fitting room. I changed my shoes as we drove to the wedding. 

I was thrilled to discover that although we were about 15 minutes late, the wedding had not yet begun. We found our family and our seats, and Mom and Dad both said, "that's our girls!" I gave Keely a high five, got out my camera and turned my attention to the ceremony.