I knew we would have fun. As we prepared to go to my nephew’s wedding in Baltimore, that notion existed without any doubt in my mind.
I just wondered if I would go through the entire day without a problem. As it turns out, I didn’t even make it out of the house before that happened.
Our family last had a wedding six years ago. As Maria and I prepared to go to that ceremony, I realized I brought two different shoes. Luckily, I had one for each foot, but they were each from a different pair of black shoes.
Since we were in New Jersey, I had no chance to rectify the mistake and spent the whole day hoping no one noticed. I made it through unscathed, mainly because our weddings are so fun, no one really cares what shoes people are wearing.
With this ceremony in Baltimore, I figured I had a home-field advantage. We would get dressed at the house before heading down to spend the night so I had nothing to worry about. Or did I?
All week I kept making a mental note to try on my suit. I had last worn it earlier in the spring when I performed at the Hanover Little Theatre, but I just wanted to make sure everything fit well.
But like most of the mental notes I give myself, it disappeared into thin air somewhere between the thought on my ride home and my actual arrival in Hanover.
Still, I figured I had no worries when I opened my closet that Saturday morning to get ready for the big day. I should know by now to never figure that everything will go according to plan.
The jacket fit fine. The pants? That’s a hard question to answer because I could not find the pants.
At first, I thought that they had fallen off the hanger or were mistakenly put in a different closet or something. After checking every possible place about eight times, I came to the conclusion that I somehow lost the pants to the one suit I could possibly wear to the wedding.
I know I should have a second suit, but, since I wear the one I have so infrequently, I just haven’t pulled the trigger on another one. I don’t need a suit for work and don’t attend that many funerals, weddings or fancy parties.
So I had to scramble with about 30 minutes before we had to leave. After banging my head on the wall – literally, I really needed to punish myself a little – I remembered that people had, in the past, commented on how a pair of pants perfectly matched a suit coat I had.
Luckily, they all fit, and I made it through the entire day without any problem. Despite the hurricane outside, we celebrated another wonderful event. When I got home, I tried to track down my suit pants and made a note to plan better when my niece gets married next year.
As if I needed a reminder, the button of the pants I wore to the wedding popped off as I unpacked my luggage when we returned Sunday. Good thing I didn’t dance too much at the reception.
I buy shoes about as frequently as the Mariners make the playoffs, so, thinking I was a size 10 because I’ve always bought size ten, I grabbed a pair of dress shoes at Fred Meyer (what we call Kroger’s out here) without trying them on first. Hey, my hip’s been bother me lately, so I skipped that part of the process because I always buy size ten.
Well, a few days later came the event I’d bought the dress shoes for. I wore my suit and tie in the car, but waited to put the shoes on. Whoops. Either shoe manufacturers shrunk sizes or I’m now larger than a size ten. I eventually got my toes in there, jammed the heels down, wore them as slippers and hoped nobody noticed. Which they didn’t, happily.
Turns out I’m now a size 11 after all. I seriously have no idea how that happened.