• I sat patiently as I waited for my mom to get home from lunch with my grandma. Suddenly I heard the front door open and shut. I hopped up and crept into the front room to see if it's them. False alarm. It was just my brother back from taking the SAT.

    I went back to the family room and watched Press Your Luck! on GSN.Haha, double whammy. I thought to myself when one person landed on a double whammy.

    I heard my dad curse from his office. He plays violent computer games and whenever something doesn't go his way he just yells. We have a curse word jar, but it doesn't help much. By now it's full to the top.

    The front door open and closed again. This time it had to be them. I turned off the TV and put the universal remote back into its charging place. I hurried into the front room and heard them talking.

    "Well, I better be heading out now," my grandma said once I entered the room.

    "Bye," I said as I half-hugged her. Her fake boobs are hard as rock, so you don't want to hug too tightly.

    My mom walked her out and I watched as my grandma struggled to get into her van. My mom waved good bye and walked back into the house.

    "Shall we?" she asked.

    "Of course," I replied.

    We walked out of the house and into her car. We drove in silence for the next fifteen minutes until we pulled into the mall parking lot. My heart was pounding just thinking about the journey we were about to embark on.

    I'm not a big fan of clothes shopping. Never have been, never will be. It's stressful and tiring. Especially when you don't find what you're looking for. Then it gets frustrating; but this time was a little different. I was excited because we were shopping for an important piece of clothing: a graduation dress.

    Yes, it was only my eighth grade graduation, and yes it was two and a half months away at that point, but it still felt important. We decided to start looking early as we figured a white or ecru dress wouldn't be so easy to find.

    We started at Sears because that's where we parked in front of. We made our way to the dress section. I walked briskly up and down the aisles, looking for any trace of white. A-ha. I thought to myself.II see you sliver of white hiding behind that hot pink gown. I walked up to it. and sighed. Yes, it was white, but it was the shortest little dress I had ever seen. If I had worn it, it would be more like a shirt. The dress had to be at least tea length (mid-calf). Plus this dress had spaghetti straps. Spaghetti straps were not allowed. The sleeves had to be at least one inch think. These straps were not even half an inch thick.

    The search continued. After Sears we breezed through a couple stores like Ann Taylor. Nothing. We tried White House Black Market. Plenty of perfect dresses there, too bad they were all black.

    On to Macy's. I found one dress while we were there. It wasn't perfect but it was worth a try on. So I did. It was too short, though, and it didn't fit right.

    We tried a few other stores with no luck. We decided we were done there and went to the next mall. We went to every store that could possibly have an appropriate white dress, but had no luck.

    We entered Nordstrom with little hope left. I fast-walked through the dresses. And there it was. The perfect dress. It was like love at first sight. I was overwhelmed with happiness at that moment. It was a beautiful white, sleeveless sheath dress. You know, like the one Audrey Hepburn wore in Breakfast At Tiffany's? This one just had to be longer and white. The one I saw was. It was breathtaking. Absolutely wonderful. I strode towards it, feeling dizzy. My search was finally over. I walked up to it from behind and looked at the front. A gigantic bow was at the neckline and tons of little triangles covered the front of the dress. At least I would look good from behind. But it just wasn't worth it to me.

    When we were heading for the escalator I saw my arch-nemesis. There she was in her ridiculously short shorts, suede cowboy boots and her huge muffin top running over her pants. She is way to big to wear a little outfit like that. As much as I dislike her, I still waved. I don't like people that I dislike to know that I don't like them, as it's a sign of weakness. Instead I just put on a happy face and pretend to be friendly around them even though inside I feel like punching them in the face.

    "Hi," I said to her.

    "Hey," she replied.

    Her mom walked over and told us they were shopping for a graduation dress, too.

    "Jessica McClintock," her mom said in her thick southern accent. "That's where we bought her dress."

    "That's where we were just going to go," I told her.

    Apparently all Jessica's dresses have spaghetti straps or are strapless. If I were to buy one I would have to wear something over top. Also, just about everyone else in my class is going there, so she had to take a picture of the dress they bought so no one would buy the same one.

    As my mom and I were going down the escalator, my mom said, "They pretty much just told us not to go to Jessica McClintock."

    So we breezed through there just to look. And so my mom could take some perfume samples. She's obsessed with perfume.

    We left and went to a dress rental shop. It was for wedding dresses, sweet sixteen dresses or quinceanera dresses. All of the dresses were awful, so we left. I had given up hope. I figured we wouldn't find a dress until the weekend before graduation.

    Once we got home we went on the computer and spent about an hour searching. What I really wanted was a sleeveless sheath dress. So we searched and we searched, and every time we saw the perfect dress it was a) too expensive b) too short or c) the neckline was too low.

    Finally, after a long hour and a half of searching we came across a website with cheap-ish dresses. We looked with anticipation, hoping the next one would be long enough and in white. And there it was. The most perfect dress I could hope for. A sleeveless floor-length dress. (I didn't want it to be floor-length but at least it wasn't short. Plus we could always get it tailored).

    "Buy it! Buy it now," I commanded my mom.

    "Okay. I need my thing," she explained. She's not very good with words, but I knew what she was saying, so I ran into the kitchen to get her wallet. She bought the dress and managed to find a free shipping code online. That made it only sixty dollars as opposed to the seventy with shipping.

    I was so happy I could cry. After many hours of searching I had finally found the perfect dress.