My wife and our 27-year-old daughter Emma bought a dress the other day.
Normally a sentence like that would be like saying, “The sun came up today.”
My wife and Emma have been known to buy clothes, is what I’m saying.
But apparently the dress my wife and Emma bought the other day wasn’t an ordinary dress. One of the reasons I know the dress my wife and Emma bought the other day wasn’t an ordinary dress is because I had to drive them to a store in Kansas City.
A store, by the way, I had never heard of which is saying something because I have driven my wife and Emma to a lot of clothing stores over the years.
Another reason I know the dress my wife and Emma bought in Kansas City wasn’t an ordinary dress is because they have been talking about buying the dress for a long time.
Constantly. Like all the time. Like talking about the ending of a White Lotus series.
But Mike, some of you are saying, “Which White Lotus episode ending do you mean?”
To those of you asking that I say, “Does it really matter?”
Yet another reason I know that the dress my wife and Emma bought the other day wasn’t an ordinary dress is they told me I didn’t have to stick around while they shopped.
In fact, they were in a hurry for me to drop them off so I would leave.
“Don’t you want to know why you can’t stay?” my wife asked me.
But I didn’t reply to my wife’s question because I couldn’t hear her since I was already in my car driving away after leaving as soon as they said I couldn’t stay.
I’m not a big fan of shopping for clothes.
And the final reason I know the dress my wife and Emma bought wasn’t an ordinary dress is because, apparently, Emma plans to wear it in her upcoming wedding.
As dresses go, a wedding dress is a pretty big deal.
I know that now!
Emma and her finance finalized the decision to get married over the past Christmas Holiday year while they were on vacation in the Caribbean. In fact, as I understand it, finalizing their decision deciding to get married was the purpose of the Caribbean vacation.
It’s possible I don’t understand completely but from what I have been told, young people ask each other to get married on carefully planned trips a lot this days.
Well I guess they don’t ask “each other” to get married. That would be silly. Most of time, again, as I understand it, only one of the couple does the asking and the other one does the whole, “Yes,” or, “No” thing.
Usually the answer is yes. If the answer is,“No” then it’s safe to say the marriage might be getting off to a shaky start.
In this case, Emma’s answer was, “Yes”.
When Emma text my wife the news that she said “Yes” my wife started to cry.
“Didn’t you know she was going to say “Yes,” I said to my wife.
“Of course,” my wife said.
“And you’re still crying?” I said.
“Yes,” my wife said.
“I see,” I said.
Even though, as usual, I didn’t see.
What I did see, however, is that the next several months are going to be rough.
Not for me of course. My plan is to stay all the hell away from the wedding plans.
Look, I’ve been pretty clueless about things that happen around our house for a long, long, long time.
The reason, by the way, you can tell say I’ve been clueless about things that happen around our house for a long time is because I used the word “long” three times.
The funny thing about my wife and Emma buying the wedding dress the other day is Emma said on the drive up to Kansas City that she wasn’t going to buy it that day.
“Why not?” I asked.
“Because my friend Broom Hilda (not her real name) bought the first dress she saw because she felt rushed and then regretted it and I don’t want to do that,” Emma said.
I guess that makes sense.
I got the sense that Emma wasn’t so much talking to me when she said she wasn’t buying her wedding dress right away but rather to my wife.
When I dropped my wife and Emma off at the store in Kansas City Emma said “Now remember,” looking directly at my wife-“We’re not buying a dress today. We’re just looking.”
That time I was sure Emma was talking to my wife.
A couple hours later, my wife called me.
“Hello,” I said.
“Emma wants to say something,” my wife said.
“Dad,” Emma said.
“Yes,” I said.
“WE BOUGHT A DRESS!!!!”, she said.
Then I heard my wife crying.
Sigh. Did I mention the next several months are going to be rough?