"Tourist" stands for: Sucker

After 3 1/2 years of dragging it along, I finally decided to pitch this Mr. Elephant.

What's the story?

Brent and I went to the Dominican Republic, Punta Cana for our Honeymoon.

Oh it was paradise.

The sun in our face.

The sea breeze blowing in our hair.

A fresh pina colada in our hands.

We were finally married.

Life was good.

Before we left our tropical resort we decided we needed something to take home with us to remember the blessed place.

Luckily the resort had a special day chosen every week where local artist would bring their chatchas... I mean memorabilia such as magnets and jewelry for all the tourist so we wouldn't have to leave the safe haven.

While browsing in awe at the beautiful trinkets that surrounded us, we were both drawn to a particular table that had, what appeared to be, handmade statues and figurines. There were people and animals posed in various ways.

Cool.

But not for us.

Well to my dismay I was walking around this not-so-stable table and knocked the first statue over. This wouldn't be such a big deal if they weren't displayed back to back creating a domino affect to every....

single...

one.

Causing the biggest statue in the back to fall and shatter.

Curses.

Blast.

Darn.

I was completely horrified!

These poor people! Scrapping together all that they had to bring their precious pieces of art to me so that they could perhaps sell a piece or two and provide for their family!

I was completely mortified!

How could I be so clumsy? so thoughtless? so distracted? The words my mom told me countless times raced through my mind, "Don't touch anything! Don't knock anything over! And be careful!"

I was discombobulated.

What to do?

How could I make amends.

Apologize?

Too easy.

Pay for the gigantic broken statue?

We were poor newly weds for heavens sake!

Was I supposed to take a piece home as my token of remembrance?

No.

How about we buy a different statue and pay extra for it?

Great idea!

So we picked out the coolest looking one.

The black elephant with the initials "D.R." on it's butt.

Perfect.

"How much do you want for it?"

No answer.

Brent and I congregated.

More than it's worth... but enough to have some cash left in our pockets.

$60.

Going. Going. Gone.

So that little elephant came home with us all the way back to Colorado.

It then made it's way to our newly wed apartment in Idaho.

It looked so cute sitting there among our few decorations.

Then one day tragedy struck the poor beast.

We're not quite sure how or when it happened...

but it fell over.

cracked...

and revealed it's true identity.

What's this?

It wasn't a brilliantly handcrafted piece of pottery!

It was a cheap piece of dirt disguising itself as something of value.

Suckered!

Cheated!

Betrayed!

And to think I felt guilty about knocking them all over.

Their entire display probably cost $5.

We laughed. Once again.

Well it added to it's humorous tale and gave Brent and I something to really to remember and joke about.

We then brought it all the way over to Martha's Vineyard hoping to someday piece it back together.

It's been glued every which way with every product imaginable.

Even colored with black marker to hide it's blemishes.

No use.

The piece of c*!$ will never be put back together again.

Now we're moving again.

This time without the elephant.

So for memories sake (and the fact that I'm trying to downsize as much as possible) I decided to take a picture of it and bury it once and for all.

So bon voyage you mockery of fine art.

May your makers be very happy they suckered another pitiful tourist.