Lace dress, pumps and locked out

Sometimes things don’t go as planned. Other times things go so crazy, you can’t help but laugh and in my case, blog about it.

Let me rewind a bit. This past week has been a busy one. Kids back to school, me back to working full time, and resuming meetings and appointments that had been put off because of the holidays/kids being home.

 

We had an invitation to a wedding reception at one of our favourite restaurants Friday night. We were looking forward to attending. Despite two days of very early mornings and back to back meetings, we made it home around 7:30pm and immediately changed into our party clothes. My daughter and I wore traditional South Asian shalwar kameez, in my case it was a thin lace outfit (you’ll see why I mention this later).

 

We were all dressed at the door, I grabbed an important work-related parcel I had to drop at the post office, my little party clutch that can barely hold any more than my phone, lipstick and lip liner. After all, what more would I need for a wedding right? Wrong.

 

I slipped on my matching pumps and pulled in the door that leads from our home into our garage, heard it click as it locked shut, and turned to my husband and ask if he grabbed his keys. Ummm.

 

 

“I thought you had the keys,”

 

“No, I have my party purse, my keys don’t fit.”

 

You get the idea where this is going. It went there.

 

Thankfully, I’m not married to a I-told-you-so kinda man, but more of a okay-nothing-we-can-do-now-let’s-figure-this-out kind of man. About a second later we hear beep, beep. What was that? Oh, just my husband’s cell phone dying. Grrr.

 

I grabbed my phone and started looking up local area locksmiths, meanwhile the kids were sitting in the car in their snowsuits, seat belts buckled, all ready to go.

 

After calling one company with a Montreal area number, I discovered they were U.S. based and didn’t service Montreal at all. So I tried a second number, I was told that their rates are $35 to come out and $35+ to open the door. No worries I say, come on out. The gentleman was about 20 minutes away but would be on his way shortly. Great.

 

Thankfully our garage is heated, so it was comfortable enough to sit and wait. I took a seat and realized it was 8:35pm by this point and the post office located in the local office supply store, closes at 9pm. I called my dad who lives two blocks away and asked him to drive me to the post office. By the time he got me across the road from the store, it was 8:53 p.m. and in order to get into the parking lot, we would have to drive another 500 meters, make a U-turn and come back. So, my dad turned to me and said: “Get out.”

 

Remember the part where I describe my lace outfit and pumps. I should probably also tell you about the 2-4 feet of snow we have on the ground. I grab my parcel in my hand, phone in the other and step right through the snow/ice and cross the main road, in to the store I go.

 

Lucky for me, the parcel was prepaid, as all the cash registers had closed for the night and they were not taking any more customers. I begged a little, pleaded a lot, and told them I simply needed to place a label on the box and ship it away. I look behind me, and in walks my dad. I smile as he comes up the counter. Then he starts:

 

“You know, my daughter has her own website.”

 

(Umm..yes Papa). The girl behind the counter smiles at him.

 

“You know this parcel is for her work. What is your name? How about you write your name down and my daughter will write it on her website and you will be famous” (Just a heads up, imagine this said with a Pakistani accent from a man relatively new to the world of blogging).

 

Writing Dania’s name on my site will not guarantee fame. He then goes on to say,  “You know, my daughter was on a way to a wedding.”

 

Dania, to me: “Yes, I love your clothes, are they from here?”

 

Me: “I bought them here, but they’re imported from over seas.”

 

My dad: “My daughter’s husband and kids are locked out of the house, and waiting for her in their garage.”

 

Omg. Seriously?! Clearly this was necessary information to share with the woman at the office supply store. I smiled, completed the paperwork and returned to the car with my helpful and proud Papa.

 

On our way back home (now about 25 minutes from the original call to the locksmith) I received a second call saying that the first person can no longer make it and a second gentleman will be by in about 25 minutes. I get back home, put the kids in my dad’s warm car and sit and wait for part two of our fantastic evening.

 

An older gentleman gets out his van and tells me “okay I’m here, $35. “

 

Me: “what?! You haven’t so much as seen the work, let’s go have a look.”

 

He takes two steps into my garage and tells me “$150 minimum.”

 

Me: “Are you serious?! I was just quoted $35+ on the phone. How do you go from $35 to $150?”

 

This goes on for the next hour as we try to make sense of this man wanting to charge us $185+ (he may have to break the lock in which case we’d have to buy another one from him at another $70 plus and so on). We spent an hour arguing with this man on our icy driveway with the cold air flowing straight through my lace outfit and feet still freezing from the snowbank I walked through. We asked him to leave, as we’re not getting anywhere and refused to pay five times the number quoted on principle and I get in my dad’s car with my kids to drive over to my sister’s place.

 

We barely made it around the corner when my husband called to tell me he took some tools to the door and managed to get it open. Took all of 15 seconds.

 

We turned back around and finally got inside our home at 10:15pm. All the kids want to know at this point was when we were going to the wedding.

 

Suffice to say, dinner was eggs and toast, clothes were changed and off to bed we went.

 

Lesson learnt: When crazy things happen, you can laugh, or you can cry. We chose to laugh and turned our evening into a memorable one we’ll be sure not to forget any time soon.