Karma Is Laughing At Me

Last night, I went to a fantastic charity event hosted by Sassy Moms in the City, WBBM and JACK 104.3FM. It was a benefit for the American Heart Association's Go Red women's initiatives and New Moms, Inc. Needless to say, red dress and red shoes were optional - but obviously suggested.

After doing a quick mental perusal of my closet, I decided a red dress was in order. While I do have a red dress in my closet, it's been... years since I've worn it. It was from a formal in college, I believe. While it does thankfully still fit, it's ummm a little short. And sadly out of date.

No worries. It was just before Valentine's Day. There are lots of red dresses out there!

Or so I thought. And so Melisa thought.

I don't have a ton of time to shop, and I'm not a big fan of shopping, as things don't quite fit the way I think they should fit, which puts me into a bad mood. I hit three stores and quickly discovered that there aren't many stores easily accessible to me that carry a large selection of dresses, let alone red dresses. After conferring with Melisa, I jumped online almost two weeks ago and quickly found four potential dreses.

Four. Whoo, go me! Something's gotta work, right?

Better yet, the free shipping (me online shopping = free shipping and in store returns if I'm buying clothes) would put those dresses to my house in plenty of time for the event last night.

Melisa eventually also found a dress online - a single dress that she ordered. As we compared notes, I laughed, as she paid for slightly expedited delivery and my dresses (four of them, mind you - I would have at least ONE that would be perfect, ha!) were scheduled to arrive a day before hers was.

On Monday this week, her dress arrived. It didn't fit. I felt badly for her, and I vaguely worried that none of the four dresses I ordered would work, but she reassured me - even after having gone shopping with me for a dress for BlogHer and seeing how many I tried on before finally finding one that worked.

Melisa went to Plan B of getting red shoes, which is a whole 'nother saga - truly, you need to go read her post. I'll wait.

My dresses were scheduled to arrive Tuesday, two whole days before the event. On Tuesday, there was a package sitting in front of my door when I got home from the gym. Whoo hoo, they arrived! I quickly scooped up the box and ran inside. I opened it, so excited to see which of my four beauties I'd be sporting at the event.

Inside, I found a twelve pack of toilet paper.

I couldn't make this up if I tried. It was a package I wasn't expecting, and I love receiving gifts, but the irony of this wasn't lost on me.

On Wednesday morning, I looked up the tracking number (again) to see where my dresses were. At 8:21am, they'd tried to deliver them - somewhere in a town I've heard of near me but don't actually know where it's located. They were being "rerouted to the correct address." I heaved a sigh of relief; they'd be here by the end of the day or the next morning at the latest.

On Wednesday, there was no package.

Yesterday, I came back from the gym, and there were two packages waiting for me on my porch. Neither was the size nor the shape of a box of clothing. I sighed and checked the tracking. The arrow that shows the status of packages? It simply had a big RED mark under the "in transit" stage. My hopes sunk. For all I knew, the package was lost - as it was still being "rerouted to the correct address" but now it was red, and red in this place is not good.

I scampered up to my closet to see what I could find to wear. I actually tried on the red dress I already owned, just for giggles. I was right in my first assessment. I tried on two different black dresses. And a red blouse with funky pants. And then I sent photos of each of them to Melisa, knowing she'd give me an honest opinion thirty minutes before I needed to walk out the door.

I wore a little black dress and black shoes - because no, I didn't have time to find any red shoes, either. Fortunately, I had managed to get a mani/pedi earlier in the day after looking at my feet and realizing open toed shoes weren't going to be pleasant if I didn't.

Best part of the mani/pedi? I chose China Glaze, a non-standard salon brand that I figured would be unique. I went with a bright red that had minor sparkles in it, just for fun. So of course, it's the exact shade Melisa chose, too, exact brand.

And that package?

It was sitting on my front porch this morning. It arrived after the event, but I determinedly marched upstairs to try on each of the dresses to figure out which one I would have worn to the event last night. Shockingly, it turns out that I would have worn... none of them.

Silly me for giggling at Melisa's silliness over ordering a single dress, smug in my knowledge that I had four options arriving in plenty of time. Karma set me straight, didn't she?

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