Making the best of a $250 bad situation

This is the $250 dress.

Lord & Taylor department store in Tyson’s Corner, VA has a great selection of fine dresses. It’s one of my favorite stores to shop when buying gowns and cocktail dresses for benefit auctions.

During the store’s May sale, I was in a hurry. I quickly scoured the racks, bought three dresses, and took them home. One of the gowns was a Donna Ricco one-shoulder dress.

Normally I wouldn’t buy a one-shoulder dress for work, and $250 is the top-end of what I’d pay, but it fit so well, hit at the proper length, and was in such a pretty salmon/coral color, that I bought it anyway. I was in a hurry, and I could always return it, right?

A few days later, a friend was visiting. I tried on the dress to get a second opinion. The opinion wasn’t as positive as I’d hoped. “You look like you’re one of the guests attending the gala, and you need to look more like you are working the gala,” was the comment.

“Fine,” I thought, “I’ll save myself $250.”  I put the dress back in the bag to return it.

On the way out the door — while balancing my Diet Dr. Pepper, locking the door in one hand, holding the bag in the other, and pushing out the screen door with my hips — I stumbled. The Diet Dr. Pepper shot out of the can … arched ike Greg Louganis diving a 2.5 pike … and went directly into the bag, landing on the dress.

ARGH! (And to be perfectly honest, I didn’t say ARGH.)

I ran back inside and immediately started blotting. Too late. The stains (although light) were set. I couldn’t in good conscious return the dress.

“Maybe I’m supposed to have this dress,” I thought, optimistically. “Maybe some event will come up that will enable me to wear it.”

Yesterday, my opportunity came.

The Washington Post Magazine has a section called “Making It” in which they feature a business. It looks like Red Apple Auctions will be in the magazine!  I’ll believe it when I see it, but I had my photo shoot yesterday.

And guess what … I wore the dress.

Have you ever had something like this happen? Have you had a time when the lemons became lemonade?

Maybe it was a reliable sponsor who suddenly failed to donate, thereby opening up the door for another sponsor to get involved. Maybe the perfect venue fell through, but it turned into a better situation because your audience size changed. Non-auction stories are good, too! Anything to help us all keep our belief that everything is on track to turn out perfectly. Post your comments below.

I’ll also take advice on removing soda stains from silk.