Honeymoon

Roger Wright and his wife, Faye, started on their honeymoon last week. It was their first honeymoon, as when they got married they could not afford to take a honeymoon, much less take the time off. Roger has been saving his vacation time down at the plant so they have a good month to have their honeymoon. They are going to leave the children, Ruth and Janice, with Faye's mother. They will be a handful for her but she has always taken care of them when they needed help before and besides, she thinks this honeymoon is way over due.

She never liked Roger to begin with and thought it was "cheap" of him not to have the big church wedding, reception and honeymoon she had always wanted Faye to have. But far be it for he to speak ill of her daughter’s choice in a husband (even if all he gave her daughter was a wedding at the Justice of the Peace's office and a quick hamburger at the Dixie Freeze).

To make sure the "Cheapskate" didn't ruin the honeymoon, Faye's mother had slipped an extra $400 in Faye's purse without telling her. After all, when a "cheapskate" takes you on a honeymoon, one should be prepared for the worse.

Roger had the car checked out so there would be no surprises on the road and, at sunrise. They had left the children with Faye's mother the night before so they could get an early start this morning. Both Roger and Faye remarked on the sunrise as they started out off Calhoun County in route to their honeymoon in Memphis. Faye had always wanted to go to Memphis and see where Elvis had lived.

When she was younger, Faye had a thing for Elvis. Not the one that died but the one in his younger years. Now she wanted to go see where he had lived. Roger had gotten them reservations at the Elvis Hotel. It was going to cost him $175 a night but he had gotten the honeymoon suite so he felt it was worth it and besides he wanted Faye to have the honeymoon he could not afford when they got married.

They had just about made it to South County when the car started making a grinding sound. Roger drove it as slowly as he could on the freeway - almost getting rear ended several times by people in other cars not paying attention - to the first service station they came to in South County. The mechanic there had told them it was the water pump and that it would take at least 8 hours to get another water pump and perhaps they could have the car back tomorrow.

Roger thought about the $175 he had guaranteed on his credit card and told the mechanic they would be back later for the car and called the car rental place that comes and gets you and requested a car. There had not been too much of a delay and they could still make it to Memphis in time for them to get to the hotel before his credit card was charges for a night they would not be able to spend there.

The rental car arrived and Roger and Faye were soon on their way to Memphis. After a while Faye told Roger she was hungry and they stopped at a diner off the freeway for breakfast. All would have been well if Faye had not taken a taste of Rogers "Special" meal and had a bad reaction to the fried catfish. Faye had never been allergic to catfish before and was wondering why she was this time when they discovered that the catfish had been fried in peanut oil.

Next on the agenda was a quick run to the hospital so Faye could get a shot to mitigate the effects of the peanut oil soaked catfish. By the time it was over Roger had to charge another $600 on his credit card and they had lost another 3 hours. Not one to be dissuaded, Roger looked at his watch and figured that they could still make it to the hotel in time providing nothing else happened.

Shortly after they got back on the freeway and were feeling comfortable about the trip, once more Roger hit something someone had let fall off their car or truck and they had a blowout. It was bad enough to have the blowout but they were going 70MPH at the time and it tool Roger, what seemed like an eternity to Faye, to get the car back under control and to the side of the road where he could change the tire to the "doughnut" tire in the trunk they were not supposed to go faster than 55MPH on. Roger and Faye managed to get the car to a service station and a quick hour and $150 on his credit card, later they were once more on their way.

It was as they were leaving the service station with the new tire that Faye asked Roger if perhaps they should just cancel there reservation at the hotel and go back to get their car and go home. Roger gritted his teeth and told Faye they were going to go on to the hotel and there would be no more problems. Faye looked out the window wondering if they were ever going to get a honeymoon.

As luck would have it they arrived at the Elvis Motel and managed to check in and were shown to their room, which had a heart-shaped bed and Jacuzzi. Roger felt it was a bit late to be sightseeing so he suggested they get something to eat and try out the Jacuzzi. This sounded like a good idea to Faye so they went and had dinner then come back up to the room and started filling the Jacuzzi with water. It surprised them that it was taking so long for the Jacuzzi to fill when they heard a knock on the door and when they opened it the maintenance man came rushing in and turned off the water then told them for some reason the Jacuzzi was leaking and they had just flooded out the room below them.

Roger and Faye went to bed knowing tomorrow would be a better day.

Roger and Faye got up the next morning and went to the place Elvis used to live and found out it was going to cost them $5 just to park the car then another $15 just to enter the grounds where you made up your mind what you were going to see then paid for it and received a pass for those places you wanted to see. Roger gritted his teeth, thinking this was what Faye wanted and paid the $30 dollars for them to get into the place where they had to pay to see anything else. On the bright side Faye thought they did have access to the gift shop where they could buy all sorts of Elvis things.

When Roger discovered that it would cost them a total of $69.95, plus tax, each to see Graceland he decided that perhaps Faye was taking this Elvis thing a bit to seriously and after discussing it with Faye they decided they would have a $5 coke each in the special Elvis cups sit for a while and watch the other people then leave.

When Roger and Faye returned to the hotel they discovered that a mistake had been made and the honeymoon suite had been rented to another couple for the night. They were told their luggage was with the bellhop and would they kindly pay their bill and the staff and management of the Elvis Motel hoped they had enjoyed their stay.

Roger paid the bill took their luggage and put it in the car along with Faye who was laughing so hard tears were coming out of her eyes.

"May I ask what is so funny" Roger asked.

IT has taken us 10 years to get the time and the money for a honeymoon and look at all of the problems we are having. I say we go home drop by the Dixie Freeze and have a hamburger then go home and relax for a couple of days.

Roger started home and they picked up their car and dropped off the rental car $250 plus tax for time and mileage then went home and crawled into their own bed holding each other close. It was about then that Faye's mother decided she needed to come to the house and get the children some clean clothes.

When she discovered that Roger and Faye were at home in their own bed instead of at the Elvis Motel she started in on her "Cheapskate" lecture to Faye who looked at her mother and said, “Perhaps you can put a price on love but I can't. We are going to finish our honeymoon here and if you don't want to take care of the kids, then Roger and I will come and get them tomorrow. Roger is not cheap; Lord knows we tried to have a honeymoon in Memphis, but it just didn't work.

Perhaps, Roger thinks to himself, next year we can have a real honeymoon, then snuggles back against Faye. After while they will get up and go have their hamburger and think about the time 10 years ago they got married and look at each other with more love then they had for each other then as they have a warm feeling inside.