Ashley’s Dress

I hate to shop, so I order most of my clothing online.  I am a hard to find size, and I get frustrated to find something I like in a store only to find out that it isn’t available in my size.  From the comfort on my home, I can shop for what I like and order it in my size.

A couple of days before my vacation to New Orleans, I received a box in the mail.  I was excited, because I had ordered a couple of things to take on my trip.  The first thing I pulled out of the box was a black dress.  The girls were standing with me watching as I opened the contents of the box.  They looked at me curiously.  Why had I ordered a black dress to take on vacation?  I honestly didn’t remember ordering it.  I checked the size.  It was my size.  I opened up the plastic packaging and held it up.  I liked it, but I still couldn’t remember ordering this black dress.

 

I pulled the next item out of the box.  It was another dress!  This one was a casual, striped drawstring dress.  Once again, it was in my size, but I didn’t remember ordering it.  By now, the girls thought I had lost my mind.  Emily teased me, “Mom, were you drunk when you placed this order?”

 

 

The next item was a jacket, and I didn’t remember ordering this item either.  We checked the size on the jacket.  It was my size, too!

 

 

 

 

The final item was another dress.  By now, the girls and I were laughing.  Pepper the Wondercat was sitting in the empty box, and Boo was jumping around, because his girls were laughing.

 

 

I had just gotten home from a long day of work.  My mind was fried, or at least not working at full steam.  I couldn’t figure out what was going on with these clothes.  For a moment I wondered if I had actually placed an order and then forgotten.  I wondered if I had the beginnings of some kind of old age memory lapse.  But that still didn’t explain things to my satisfaction.  While I liked these clothes, short dresses and a funky jacket didn’t seem like something I would have ordered.  They were cute items, but not office or professional-wear.  I thought I had ordered a pair of jeans and a couple of tops for our upcoming trip.

I looked at the label on the box.  There was my name and address!

As I was throwing away the packing, I saw another label at the bottom of the box.  This wasn’t my order at all!  This order belonged to someone named Ashley from Connecticut.  I wasn’t sure what to do.  I was tired and decided I could deal with it the next day.

The next day my real order arrived.  I was fairly certain that I would never see the things I had actually ordered.  Once I realized that my order was safe and sound, I called the company.  I gave them Ashley’s order number and told them that it had been sent to the wrong address.  Believe it or not, but they told me that a duplicate order had been sent to the real Ashley.  I asked them what to do with the items I had received.  They told me that it was up to me to decide what to do with them.

At that point, I fully intended to ship them back to the company.  When I went to look for the box and the label, I couldn’t find a thing.  T, my extremely efficient partner, had washed the clothes and put the box in the recycle bin.  It was long gone at that point.

I tried on one of Ashley’s dresses.  I was surprised to find that I liked it, and it fit perfectly.  I tried on the other dresses and liked them, too.  Emily claimed the jacket, and loves it.

Today was the first day that I have worn one of Ashley’s dresses.  While I would not have chosen this dress as an item to wear to work, I added a jacket and I liked the results.  All day long, I have smiled as I pictured the Ashley in Connecticut and imagined her wearing the same dress today.