Fun While It Lasted

After a Saturday of swimming, playing and child-friendly entertainment while Chris worked himself to the bone, we met up for an adult night out at Ryan Miller's Steadfast Foundation fundraiser: Catwalk for Charity. While it all goes to a good cause, it really is just a giant alcohol haze of a party where you can sip (or in my case gulp!) your martini and make fun of all the little hussies dolled up in outfits barely covering their extremities all because they dream of catching the eye of a Buffalo Sabre. It is a little freaky to see the players work the party and speak to people while a gaggle of adoring, barely clad women tottering on four inch heels follow them in silent adoration. (Of course, then you have clueless me and Christine, who had to ask who the tall (handsome!) gentleman speaking to our friend Mike was, right before he was introduced us to, oh, Paul Gaustad. Our husbands were not proud. Maybe we had gulped one too many martinis. I will say in our defense that we recognized the County Executive immediately even with a few martinis under our belt later in the evening. Yes, we may be geeks.)

The auction is always interesting. I have to figure out how people can afford thousands and thousands of dollars for pizza or dinner with a Sabre. I think the dinner for 8 at Tempo with Ryan Miller and four of his teammates went for $8,000. I know, I know, it all goes to a good cause - but really! That better be one hell of a dinner. And of course, the fashion show was cute. Not much fashion, just an excuse for the ladies to fawn over the players in their ts and jeans.

The night was a great adult night out right up and until we left. We exited with several other couples we had attended with and while we were the first to give the valet our ticket, all our friends' cars pulled up first and they all drove off as we stood on the curb waiting and shivering and waiting for our car to arrive. No car. Fifteen minutes passed and still no car. Chris realized that the valet he had given our ticket to was standing with an unclaimed blue Audi. We arrived in a silver Passat. (Also not our car. Chris has borrowed my grandmother's car - the Passat- while they are in Florida because he can't seem to decide on a new car and his old lease expired two weeks ago. My husband has a procrastination problem.) Anyway, we approach the valet and explain this is not our car. He looks confused and really bored. After a few moments of contemplation, he denies ever taking our ticket. Great.

We approach the women working the valet stand and explain the situation. They ask for our ticket. We tell them we GAVE them our ticket and now they brought us the wrong car. We wave to the valet standing with the STILL unclaimed Blue Audi. After a few minutes of deliberation, the valet brain trust tells us to start looking through the boards of keys in hopes of finding our car key so they can find our (my grandmother's) car. Did I mention that like 1000 people attended this event? Yeah, that's a LOT of key chains.

We look through key chain after key chain and well, it's not there. Shivering and now angry, we convince the valet to send another runner to the lot to see if there is a Passat there. Five minutes later, a valet pulls up with a Passat. Hurray! Chris and I start to get in the car - which was the SAME exact color as my grandmother's car and even had the SAME make & color booster seat as Aidan's in the back seat, only to realize it's not our (her) car.

The valet runner doesn't believe us. He argues with us. I lose my shit on the valet attendant and tell her she needs to find someone in charge (code word for SOMEONE OVER THE AGE OF 17) who will find us our fucking car right NOW because we have been standing out here for almost an hour and it appears you have lost our car OR given it to the WRONG PERSON. (And how in the hell am I going to explain that to my nana?)

The valet attendant runs inside and returns, thank you LORD!, with an adult. The adult valet looks concerned. He dispatches several runners to look for another Passat. As we wait, praying they will find our car, I realize we are now over an hour late for our babysitter.

Finally, FINALLY, they pull up in (another) Passat - that is indeed, our (my grandmother's) car.

So, in summary: great night out right up until they lost our car. Other people go out, enjoy their night and return home without a hitch. Not us. Sigh.