Checklist: Getting ready for the ball

  • tickets: check
  • table reservation: check
  • buy hat: check
  • practice dance steps: check
  • shower: check
  • shave: check
  • discover clean suit in cleaner’s bag was the old polyester one: check
  • find newer suit that’s still pretty clean: check
  • get dressed: check
  • help kid make brownies: check
  • pet cat: check
  • blogging while wife still running around naked upstairs: check

5 responses to “Checklist: Getting ready for the ball

  1. Jann

    Yes, it generally takes men less time to get ready than it does women; but two questions:

    1) Did said wife agree that newer suit was still pretty clean, and that “pretty clean” was clean enough?

    2) What if there were no newer suits that were still pretty clean? And now I’m starting to wonder exactly what “pretty clean” means. I would assume something like no noticeable spots and no easily detectable odors. So if there were none that met those criteria, would you be scrubbing spots with a rag, and/or waving the suit around in the fresh air?

  2. Jann

    Oh, and most importantly, did you enjoy the ball? Did the dance practice come in handy, or did you end up doing some version of the Texas two step most of the time?

  3. Have a ball! (What? You know good and well SOMEONE had to say it…)

  4. mig

    Actually, my wife was done pretty early, too, and we sat around for an hour twiddling our thumbs before we could leave for the ball. The suit was, yes, no noticeable spots or odors. Don’t know what I would have done had they all turned out to be awful.
    Dancing lessons paid off. Alpha is a pretty good dancer, unlike me, and I was able to keep up with her in most cases. We skipped the tango, and my jitterbug, it turns out, still needs a little work before. Right now it’s still half jitterbug, half mommy what’s wrong with that man? I need a lot of practice, in general, because my dancefloor performance remains inconsistent, with periods of okay dancing followed by total blackouts, which are sort of embarassing, unless the floor is really full so no one can see anything anyway. I didn’t even try the tango, which is too bad, it looks fun. The fast waltzes are also fun, in a mosh pit sort of way.

  5. I was a bit worried there for a moment. Thought that after petting cat and the brownie bake, you might have had to strip off clean suit and return to old polyester one.

    Glad that didn’t happen. Dancing in polyester is not good fun.