When I was an underclassman, finding the perfect prom dress seemed like a carefree, simple task — a fun day at the mall with friends, trying on tons of gorgeous dresses in every color imaginable. What more could a girl want?

But when I was actually faced with finding my own dress, I dreaded the addition of yet another responsibility tacked onto the craziness of junior year. Despite my reluctance to spend a whole day shopping instead of doing the APUSH homework due Monday, my friend convinced me to go to the mall on March 20 in search of the perfect dress.

We got to the mall at 8:30 p.m., one hour before it closed, and naively thought we would be able to find dresses quickly if we went straight to Macy’s prom dress section. When we got there, we immediately grabbed every dress that caught our attention and went into the dressing rooms with our arms full of lace and chiffon.

After trying on every dress in sight, we exited the store empty-handed. Everything either didn’t fit right or was just NOT flattering. One dress was high-low and neon yellow with way too many beads. The prom dress section seemed so much smaller than it did when I passed through it as a freshman, eyeing the dresses enviously.

Disgruntled, we walked around the mall to look for other stores with prom dresses, but everything was closed because we had wasted too much time in Macy’s. We left upset, but not discouraged, and planned to continue looking the next day.

We met again in the morning, and my friend suggested going to a mall she could not remember the name of, but was sure  had a bigger Macy’s. She finally “remembered” that the mall was called Eastridge; half an hour later, we found ourselves at a run-down mall in East San Jose. We cautiously walked in and asked the cashier at Macy’s to direct us to the prom dresses section, to which she replied that they didn’t have any in the store yet. JCPenney's gave us the same answer, and we finally realized that the mall she was talking about was Oakridge, not Eastridge.

Another 20 minutes later, we found ourselves at Oakridge, which seemed much more familiar and welcoming. However, their prom dress selection was even smaller  than Valley Fair’s. I was so disappointed that I couldn’t put to use my $300 worth of gift cards to Macy’s that had been piling up at home.

We decided to give up when we came across Windsor, a store with a small selection of prom dresses in the back. I saw a light purple, long dress with silver beads on a high-hanging rack, and tried moving it around until it finally fell on me, leaving me avalanched with all of the dresses on the rack.

I went to the dressing room and tried it on and instantly loved it. I texted a picture to my family and made sure they approved of the dress before I bought it. Upon looking at the price tag, I found out that it was $200, more than I wanted to spend on a dress I was only going to wear once.

We went back to Valley Fair, determined to find a dress that day, but only saw the same dresses we had the day before and left ready to succumb to online shopping.

Finally, I arrived home exhausted. My family instantly began asking me to see my new dress, but I stopped them in their excitement, explaining that it was too expensive.

My mom, surprisingly, said that I only got one junior prom, and I might as well just buy the dress if I liked it. I was ecstatic, but didn’t want to go back to the mall and find it; I’d had enough shopping for a lifetime. Though I vowed I never would, I ended up buying the dress online. After all the complaining and traveling to different malls, I finally found that perfect dress that I always dreamed of.