A comedy of errors - baby shower remix

This was just one of those evenings that you have to laugh at because everything went exactly wrong. I am supposed to be at a baby shower right now but instead am at home blogging. Here is how it went down:

3:34 pm: I finished my workout and decide to cook dinner. The baby shower is supposed to start at 6:30, I still need to shower and wrap the gift, and dinner should take about an hour to cook...need to leave at 6:15...yeah, this should leave plenty of time to finish all of my tasks and get to the baby shower on time!

4:42 pm: Dinner is ready! A new dish that is a success!!! The hubs and I sit down to eat it and I map out what I still have to do before I leave.

5:12 pm: Take a shower.

5:21 pm: Start doing my hair and make-up. It's been a few days since I have gotten all gussied up so I decide to go all out with the curly hair and smokey eyes.

5:58 pm: Finished getting ready. Time to wrap the gift!

6:02 pm: I decide that I am too lazy to wrap the gift in a box so I opt for the much easier gift bag. Thank goodness I bought a bunch of extra ones a couple of weeks ago from the Target dollar bin!

6:03 pm: Oh, shoot! I need a card too!

6:04 pm: Remember that I bought a bunch of cards from the dollar card rack for occasions in which I forget to buy a card. I raid the desk drawer with greeting cards and am victorious.

6:09 pm: I decide to look up directions to the shower since I have to leave in 6 minutes. I realize the address is not in the email about the shower like I thought. No problem - I have a church directory and can just look up the address!

6:11 pm: I have used google maps to find the house. I briefly relay some of the directions to the hubs and say, "This isn't the way that we used to go to their house, is it?" He says no, but that we always went to their house from the south and I will be traveling from the north so google maps is probably just telling me a different way.

6:15 pm: I am in the car and pulling out of the garage. Man, am I good at timing!

6:26 pm: I get off at the exit and am less than 1.5 miles away from their house. Guess it's time to pull out my hand written directions!

6:28 pm: First snafu - my directions say to turn left onto Lancon Rd but the name of this road is Lacon Rd. I must have just written it down wrong.

6:29 pm: Did google maps say 0.2 miles to the next turn or 0.7. Maybe I should have written that down... No, it was definitely 0.2 and I have driven much further than that already. Maybe I'll just turn around and look for Lancon Rd. Maybe there are two roads - one Lacon and one Lancon. They were really stupid naming two roads such similar names!

6:32 pm: I opt for my GPS since I can't find Lancon Rd. It tells me that I should have turned on Lacon Rd. So maybe I was the stupid one.

6:34 pm: I double back and realize that it was 0.7 miles not 0.2 miles and I turned around one street before my turn. It's okay, I'll only be about 5 minutes late.

6:35 pm: I am 5 minutes late, there are no balloons on the mailbox and there are no other cars in the street. Was this a surprise baby shower or something? Should I be parking someplace else? Aren't there always balloons on the mailbox? I don't even recognize the house from the 3 other times I have been here. Did they move since the directory was printed? Maybe I'll just sit in my car until I see someone else walk into the house.

6:37 pm: Still sitting in my car. Surely someone else is late and will walk into the house soon.

6:38 pm: I feel stupid just sitting in my car in front of a random house. Maybe I should rummage through my purse some to make my delay in exiting my vehicle more convincing.

6:39 pm: Lip gloss! I'll apply lip gloss! That has to take at least a minute - surely someone will arrive in the next minute!

6:40 pm: I have spent one full minute applying lip gloss. My mouth feels like a slip and slide, no one else has arrived at the house, and now I am 10 minutes late. Another thought occurs to me: I shouldn't be sitting out here because if it is a surprise I don't want to blow the surprise by sitting in my car in front of the party.

6:41 pm: I buck up, grab the present from my passenger seat and walk to the front door.

6:41 and 30 seconds: I ring the doorbell. A 10 year old girl answers. This is unexpected - a grown-up in party gear should have answered and directed me where to put the gift. She doesn't say anything to me so I say, "Is this where the shower is at?" She continues looking at me not saying anything. Wait, do 10 year olds know what a baby shower is if you just call it a shower? Does she think I am talking about a literal shower? Did I just creep out a 10 year old by asking her about a shower at her house? She continues to look very confused so I say, "I guess not!" and quickly retreat to my car.

6:43 pm: I pull my cell phone out of my purse and realize that last night when I discovered it wasn't charged I thought, "Oh, I'll just charge it the next time I get up." and then didn't. My cell phone is dead, I am the creepy person who just asked a child about taking a shower at their house and I still have no idea where the shower is actually at.

6:44 pm: I decide that I probably shouldn't stay parked in front of this person's house so I just start driving. Maybe they did move. I bet I can back track and figure out how to get to their house if I drive from the south. However, I'm not sure how to get to the south.

6:52 pm: By winding through many roads I have finally found the road that we usually take. Okay, now all I have to do is drive in the general direction, I will recognize the turns that I have to make, I will find their neighborhood and then all I have to do is look for balloons on a mailbox! I may be a half hour late but this should be a piece of cake.

7:02 pm: My plan has already failed. Apparently I shouldn't have made the hubs drive to their house every time because I didn't recognize the turn. I have now hit a dead end and I am several miles away from my starting point and in the country. All that is around me are corn fields and farm houses.

7:06 pm: I have made a couple more turns and realize that I am lost and I am not going to be able to find their house by "winging it." I start heading home

7:08 pm: I have done a couple of calculations - I don't quite know where I am at but I figure that I am greater than 15 minutes from home. They live greater than 15 minutes away from me. It will probably take me about 10 minutes to find their actual address and then make a map. That means that I probably have no chance of getting to the shower until 8:00 pm. It started at 6:30 pm. Is 1.5 hours inappropriately late?

7:29 pm: I arrive at home defeated. The hubs comes out to the garage because he can't figure out why it would open on it's own and then I have to admit the whole story to him. The whole time I am talking the poodle is jumping up and down seeking my attention. At least the dog is happy to see me.

8:04 pm: I have put on my pajamas. I have also gotten onto facebook and sent my apologies for not being at the party. This evening didn't go as planned, but the hubs is just finishing up his work for the day and he and I will spend the rest of our evening together. This is a comedy of errors that has been salvaged into an okay night.