This past weekend we journeyed to Ute, Iowa (population: 500) to visit Nick's extended family. Several amusing things occurred.

ONE. The outfit I had picked out for Saturday was a white, sleeveless blouse and a peach silk skirt. It was a pretty outfit, and I felt good in it. The problem was, I somehow forgot to pack ANY undergarments whatsoever, a fact that occurred to me in the car about halfway to our destination.

"Noooooooooo!" I shrieked, burying my face in my hands.

"What?!!" Nick asked, alarmed. "What's wrong?!" He checked his mirrors to see if an accident was imminent, then just looked at me quizzically.

I took a deep breath. "I don't have a bra or panties to wear tomorrow."

"Is that all?" He began to chuckle in that annoying way he does, and then he did the male thing and provided me with an instant solution. "Well, why not wear what you're wearing now? We can find a laundromat."

I shook my head, then pulled my denim shirt over my shoulder and showed him. The bra and panties were black—absolutely dark-of-night-when-there's-no-moon black—and wearing them with the planned outfit would have been unthinkably trashy. For a moment, I imagined the look on my in-laws' faces when they saw me in this Courtney Love concoction. And as if that were not enough, I had also forgotten to bring along the white tank top I usually wear beneath the blouse. Without the tank top, the blouse is quite transparent. I had a serious problem.

Nick began to laugh again, and this time he did not really stop until we hit the next rest area. He made up for it with another solution, though, and soon we were at a Gordman's in Omaha, collecting the necessary items.

I wonder—how is it that I can remember to bring every item of jewelry I might conceivably need, as well as my full regimen of hair care products, but when it comes to the most rudimentary things, like CLOTHING, I completely flake out?

TWO. We paid a visit to Ruth's Sweet Shop, which has been an institution in Ute for about forty years. It used to be the kind of soda shoppe where you could sit and drink malted milkshakes for hours. Nick, his brother, and all of his cousins have memories of buying candy and soda there while visiting Grandma. It was a kid's dream—like the candy store at the beginning of Willy Wonka.

The family said I had to see it. "It's changed, though," they warned me. "Don't expect too much. It's kind of . . . well . . . a mess." So we hiked the full three blocks to Ruth's (at which point we were on the other side of town), and stepped inside.

You know the part in Great Expectations where Pip goes to see the elderly Miss Havisham? The place is a shambles. Miss Havisham is sitting at a long table in a wedding dress that's falling to pieces. She has not cleaned, or changed a single thing about the house since she was left at the altar thirty years earlier, and in front of her sits the remains of the wedding cake. The whole scene is a fantastically Gothic depiction of decay.

That's kind of what Ruth's reminded me of.

There was a single long counter on the right when you walked in, but the entire surface was piled high with boxes and packages of ancient, wrapped candy. There was dust everywhere. Thirty-year-old packs of Topps baseball cards lay in multiple stacks—probably worth a fortune, although the gum had certainly petrified by now. Boxes littered the floor, too, spilling out from the counter like a tidal wave of cardboard. As far as I could tell, there wasn't any rhyme or reason to the way they were arranged. Some of them were completely empty. There was just enough room to walk back and forth around them. The restaurant part of the store was still functioning, and a few flannel-clad men were drinking coffee at the tables during our visit. But the candy part of the store—the part that my husband and his family knew and loved so well—was just a distant memory.

I don't know what brought about this strange lapse in upkeep. Maybe Ruth read Great Expectations, too. Or maybe she just figured out that entropy is the way of the world, and there's no use fighting it too much.

THREE. One of the great things about hanging out with family is that you get to interact with everybody's kids. Nick, especially, has fun with the kids, and he takes every opportunity to engage in maddening, logic-bending conversations with them. The night we arrived, Nick and I were sitting across from his cousin's kids. We had just started our casserole, when eight-year-old Dorian made his announcement.

"We've got a Bobcat that we ride," he said proudly. "Dad bought it."

"Oh really?" Nick replied. "I wouldn't think it would be safe to ride a big cat."

"No . . ." Dorian said, giggling. "It's a Bobcat. You drive it around and it goes 'eeeee' and it has levers."

"Your cat has levers? I've never seen a cat with levers. I've seen the big cats at the zoo, and none of them have levers."

"No, no, no . . . it's not a cat."

"But you just said it was a cat, and that it had levers."

"Arrrrrgggggh!"

Nick's logic games continued in this fashion until Dorian gave up and started banging his head against the table in frustration. I think the family now has a deeper appreciation for what I endure on a daily basis.