Dressing at Dick's

My husband and I decided to take a weekend alone. We left instructions and the lists of "Thou Shalts" and "Thou Shalt Nots". The occasion for this adventure was the wedding of our friend's daughter.

We were headed for the beautiful Texas Hill Country. We packed up our stuff and lit out, leaving early enough on Friday to drive by our piece of property in Bandera, before heading to Austin for the rehearsal dinner. We took the scenic route along the backroads.

Rock Springs was the nearest town at lunch time and so we stopped at a cute little restaurant. It's always nice to be able to dream about what the future may hold for our family, and that was the main topic of conversation that day.

Driving on to Bandera after lunch, we got out and tromped around our little piece of hill country heaven. When it was time to go, we loaded up and headed toward Austin. Well, from Bandera to Austin, there is no quick route. The distance does not give you an accurate gauge of how long it will actually take to drive there. As it got later, and later and the distance wasn't dropping accordingly, I started to panic.

Our hotel was located in downtown Austin. The rehearsal dinner was in the suburbs. By the time we hit the outskirts of Austin, it was obvious there was no way to make it to the hotel to get ready. What now??? It's not like we were really presentable-we had been out climbing around in Bandera in our grubbies.

We decided to go toward the rehearsal dinner instead of the hotel. But where will we get dressed? I need to wash my hair! I have to at least put on some mascara! EEEEKKK! I finally face the inevitability of my situation. The ONLY option is to wash my hair in somebody's sink! And get dressed there, too? Of course, no simple option presented itself. There couldn't be a huge, clean truck stop. Don't people shower there sometimes?? There was nothing that looked even remotely "nice". But I'm down for the count, now, and I have no choices left to me except a convenience store. How can this be happening? I don't even have kids along that I can blame any part of this on. It's just us two responsible adults and we have gotten ourselves into a mess!

Well, I pull into a convenience store, buy the only shampoo they had (Johnson's Baby Shampoo) and brave the restroom. Thankfully, it's not actually too bad. Thankfully, I have very short hair that I just wash and go. I partially dried it with the hand dryer and went back out to the truck. My husband had refused to go in and he certainly did not plan to change clothes there. We drove on.

Still hoping against hope that a public dressing room will magically appear, we are almost out of time and options. I see a fast food place and ask if he thinks it would work?

Nope! Fine!

Last chance: huge almost empty parking lot at a Dick's Sporting Goods. I pulled out to the very end and took a deep breath. I scanned the area to make sure there were no security cameras to capture this mortifying moment for posterity (or YouTube). I slipped out of my grubbies into my dress, the whole time trying to hunker down and be invisible.

Then I pulled out my half slip. You have got to be kidding me!! I brought the wrong one!! It's about a foot too long! Past the point of no return, I just pull it up over everything, almost up to the neckline of my dress. Can you imagine? Never mind, don't try. Shoes on, make up slapped on in the rearview. It just doesn't matter anymore. I'm numb!

Needless to say, I thoroughly savored the luxury of getting dressed for the wedding in a HOTEL ROOM!!!

I asked myself, how do I get into these situations? My answer: When it's just two of us, not 8 or 9, I don't really think much about the details. Should be a piece of cake! When the whole family has to make an appearance, I know I have to plan out everything!

The good news is that when we arrived, no one could tell we were any the worse for wear. Of course, they may have secretly wondered to themselves why I was reluctant to stand up after being seated. The truth of the matter was I was scared to death I'd lose my slip!!