With my tickets in my hand (ok, not really in my hand).. with my tickets in my email, I smile and realize that we are really going to the 2015 United States Sailboat Show in Annapolis. I have never been to a boat show. I’ve been to a boat store, but that’s not really the same – I’ve never seen a sailboat at the local fishing and skiing boat store. Sot to say I’m excited is putting it mildly, I’m anxiously and eagerly waiting to bag my bag, hop on a plane, and find the boat of my dreams.
Wait… pack my bag?? And that’s when I realized that I know how to pack for work (boring – suits, blah), I know how to pack for vacation (the best – swimsuits, yay), but I have NO idea what one wears to a boat show.
Are you suppose to dress up like you can afford a boat? Are you suppose to dress comfortable since you’ll be walking miles on the docks? I know at the mall, if I walk into a department store in flip flops and I’m shopping in the shoe department, I get a mix of mildly amused/mildly annoyed looks from the sales people, you know that look that says they know you can’t afford what they are selling because look what you are wearing? Yeah… I love when that happens and then I buy 4 or 5 pairs of shoes just to see the surprised expressions on the faces of the sales people who wouldn’t help me. (hehe, that happened today actually, and now I’m in my work out clothes and smiling at these gorgeous heels on my feet – but totally can rationalize it since life soon will be all about the bare feet on the boat and I won’t have any need for heels, gotta enjoy them now).
But I digress, back to my problem at hand. Is the way the shoe lady looks at me when I’m wearing flip flops going to be the same way the sailboat representative looks at me if I’m wearing my worn out and worn in shorts and tank top? Do I need to put on a couple of thousands of dollars worth of clothes to be taken seriously at the boat show?
I DON’T KNOW… so I Google “what to wear at a sailboat show” (crazy stuff, huh? what did we ever do before we had Google?)
Now I’m sitting here typing this and still have no clue. I got answers like “It’s hot outside, so dress cool and wear sunscreen”, “you walk a lot so dress comfortably”, “you’ll carry around a lot of literature, so bring a bag”, “you’ll take your shoes off to get in the boats, so wear something you can slip on/off your feet easily”, and that’s about it.
I’m all the way back to wondering what to put in my suitcase. Guess I’ll just wear what I would like to wear while living on a boat.. well, that might be a little scandalous since I don’t want to wear much.. I’ll wear what I would wear to go island hopping while living on a boat.
But just for you! I’m going to document my journey through the dress code needed to attend a sailboat show that way YOU won’t have to ever wonder the same questions that are plaguing me now.
( you know… you’d think that I should be thinking about how I’m going to afford the boat of my dreams instead of thinking about what I’m going to wear while shopping for the boat of my dreams… oh well, priorities I guess )
More to come on the important issue of Dress Codes.
BarefootBikiniBeachlife 