A funny thing happened on the way to the Prom...

Otherwise known as the comedy of errors leading up to the Prom dinner which I hosted for Matthew's last high school dance (sniff.) Luckily, the dinner itself went off without a hitch and a good time was had by all (or so I'm told.)

It started out with a busy Saturday - a baseball game for Max, a Driver's Ed drive for Matthew, a Relief Society meeting (which I never made it to but did manage to drop McKelle off as she was playing her flute with a YW group) - and of course, the aforementioned Prom dinner. Four couples, Italian themed menu concocted by Matthew and Julia.

My sage, chocolate & turquoise dishes didn't really fit the Italian theme and I didn't have enough white Corel, so I stopped by Macys after dropping off McKelle and Matthew, gift card and coupons in hand. I found place settings for two, for six...nothing for eight. Then the gentleman at the register pointed out some pretty square white place settings for four and even better, they were buy one get one free. My gift card covered almost the entire purchase price and I went happily on my way, thinking I had gotten a fabulous deal.

Matthew and I stopped at Safeway to pick up the dinner ingredients, picked up McKelle and headed home. As I started setting the table, I realized the first thing to go wrong of many that day. The lovely place settings? Not a setting for four as I had been advised (and yes, absolutely my fault for not slowing down to read the box better) but a four piece place setting for one! No time to go back downtown, so I headed over to Walmart to pick up enough Corel to set my table (several plates were dropped by a certain 12 year old as he unloaded the dishwasher recently, ahem...)


I found what I needed and headed toward the checkout in record time...and just then the lights went out. Literally. After a couple of minutes of glancing around, trying to figure out what was going on, a Walmart associate announced over the loudspeaker that all customers should exit the building. I desperately asked a clerk standing near me if there was any way I could make my purchase, but power was out for the registers and in fact, for the whole area. I sat in my car and waited for about 20 minutes, hoping power would be restored, but finally drove to Shopko and found what I needed.

Back at home again, Matthew and I started the dinner preparations. Their appetizer choice was a caprese salad and we had picked up fresh mozzarella, tomatoes and basil earlier that morning. As Matthew laid out the alternating slices, he snitched a piece of the mozzarella...and made a face. I tasted it and realized our cheese was definitely NOT fresh. I had no idea if Walmart was open again (it's just 5 minutes from our house) and at that point, definitely no time to run to town. Luckily, I had a little bit of block mozza in the fridge, so we used that instead.

While Matthew finished up the caprese, I started the homemade pesto sauce for the tortellini. I was disappointed that many of the inner leaves of the just purchased basil were already turning black - obviously not a good day at the grocery store. As I was sorting through the good leaves and the bad, I got another surprise - a giant green caterpillar/wormy thing - alive and wriggling amongst the basil leaves! Aargh! What else??

Just before all the teens arrived at 6, I was sitting on the dining room floor, trying to fold my (non-square!) napkins into a fancy fold and the final straw - a gigantic, gushing, Wegener's sized nose bleed, all over the white carpet. It was one time when I was glad they were all a little late as I pinched my nose with a giant wad of paper towel in one hand and scrubbed the floor with Oxy Clean with the other.

Oh my, what a day! But in the end, dinner was served and eaten, fun pictures were taken and I think Matthew's last high school dance date was totally worth it, Murphy and all. :) Even if we did only have seven matching glasses...