Ok, talk about a panic.

A few weeks ago I attend the System i Innovation Award banquet at the COMMON conference.

This was a formal affair, suit and tie, but all my suits were pretty old … since I don’t wear them to work (only once or twice a year), there hasn’t been a driving need to get a new one.

So off to Nordstroms Ginny and I go … we find a really nice charcoal wool suit that requires minimal tailoring.

Fast forward to the COMMON conference … because I’m only going for the awards banquet … I wasn’t able to get MKS to pay for me to attend. I did a bit of wheeling & dealing, arranged to room with my friend Aaron (who is a vendor) , and paid my own airfare (Ginny was able to find me a pretty reasonable rate).

When I arrived at the hotel, I found Aarons room and dropped my stuff off … including hanging my suit up in the closet. A little while later, a friend of mine told me that he was in a suite at the hotel … and had an entire room available that he wasn’t using. He asked if I wanted to stay in that room instead. Obviously I said yes. He gave me the key and I went back to Aarons room to get my stuff (including my suit).

Fast forward again to Monday evening … about an hour before the awards banquet. I’m getting ready, pull out my suit … only to find my suit pants missing.

The first thing that flashed in my head was that I had forgotten my pants at home. I called Ginny to see if she could check the closet (not that she could do anything about it at that point). She wasn’t home. I tried calling Aaron, who would be on the expo floor, to see if he knew if they were still in the closet of his room. I got his voice-mail.

As a last ditch effort, I called Marty (who is a co-worker at MKS, and also on the expo floor) to see if he could go and ask Aaron to call me. I got a text message from Aaron saying that he couldn’t leave the expo, but I could come over and get a spare key.

I sprinted over to the expo (luckily it wasn’t far) and got the key … then ran back to Aaron’s room and checked his closet … THANKFULLY the pants were still in the closet. I had taken the pants off the hanger the jacket was on so they could hang separately.

I then ran back to my room and finished getting ready … took me a bit of time to cool down, but I was once again presentable … and the rest of the evening was a success (although I didn’t win the award 🙁 ).