Because She Is My Favorite

On one of our vacation trips to South Carolina we had the pleasure of taking along Tim’s then Girlfriend Elisa with us, as most of you know she is now our Daughter-in-law so I am allowed to pick on her a bit because she is my favorite and she wouldn’t expect any less. We first met Elisa when she was just a youngster; she was the best friend of a cousin and visited our house several times back when the kids were young enough to think one another had cooties and had no intention of being boyfriend and girlfriend.

Elisa is a picky eater and was not real impressed with the buffet we found in Jackson, Tennessee that included crawdads nor the seafood restaurant in South Carolina where we enjoyed Frog Legs, she and Cindy are on the same page when it comes to this type of food so they always find an alternative choice that is not nasty.

We got into Cherokee, NC and she was so happy to be able to walk the downtown area with Tim just like all the other couples were doing, we kind of stayed back and let them enjoy their time together as we were enjoying ours, Elisa found some trinket she wanted and insisted on paying with her own money which she was carrying inside her jeans pocket, she had a one hundred dollar bill and a few ones the item was just a couple dollars so she paid and went on her way, later on she found something a bit more expensive and fretted and discussed with Tim whether or not to break her one hundred dollar bill, they decided it was worth it and she reached inside her pocket to find her money was gone, evidently it had fallen out when she paid for her last purchase, she told us what had happened and we went back to the store in hopes someone found it and turned it in, but you all know the answer her money was long gone.

Tim got himself all worked up wanting to find her money but that was all in vain because in my opinion at this point there is nothing to be done other than pick up and continue the vacation, we got it to South Carolina and made a trip back up into North Carolina with my Sister and her family to the theme park Carowinds, now if you ever get into NC around Charlotte this park is well worth a visit, it is actually both in NC and SC as the state line runs through the park. With Elisa’s money gone we of course didn’t let her go without, Tim took care of anything she needed and actually allowed her to hold his wallet while he went on the rides she didn’t want to go on, while sitting out one of these thrill rides she was with a couple of our nieces sitting in the shade and talking, evidently while sitting there she laid Tim’s wallet beside her and there it laid when the girls got up and walked away.

Tim was livid when he asked for his wallet only to find it was gone, we scoured the whole area where they were sitting and nothing was found, to make a long story short his wallet turned up in Lost And Found with everything in it minus his money which was a couple hundred bucks, Now little Miss Elisa and I had a long talk, she was not allowed to carry any money the rest of the trip, she was not allowed to look at any money and she actually felt so bad about losing money not once but twice on the same trip.

Now believe it or not after we got home Elisa got herself a job and paid Tim back all the money she had lost, he did not ask her to do this but she insisted, we later bought a small car for her and allowed her to make payments to us like you would a bank, I wrote up a contract and spread out the note long enough to where she could afford the payments, to our surprise in six months time she had paid the note in full, and guess who is handling the money now in their marriage? Yes you guessed Elisa is very thrifty and smart with the finances of their household, her losing this money evidently taught her a lesson and I am proud she is one to learn from her mistakes, Tim and Elisa are in the process of buying a home of their own and it is now looking like we just may be hitting the road to go and visit Tim and Elisa because as you are reading this her water has broken and it looks like little Benjamin Wyatt is on his way.

..to be continued as the results come in