My New Low

Well, Drayton is in India on his first business trip there - learning the customs of India while trying to conduct business has been an adventure for him.  We miss him lots here but talked to him for a while this evening and he was able to send us pictures.  Since this was the kids' first week of school and there's no homework, I decided to take them out tonight for dinner to celebrate.  We decided to return to a Mexican restaurant we had been to before (yes, a little bit of a cop-out but it was a known place which I needed this evening).

Anyway, we took a taxi there and had a great dinner and lots of fun conversations and a fun family pic....

 .. attempt at a family "selfie"...

...better with the help of the waiter!

Unfortunately, what followed was a lesson for the Virkler children in humility!  I went to pay our bill to realize that my wallet was sitting on my desk at home!  We had taken an Uber taxi to the restaurant (therefore not needing cash since it charged my credit card automatically) and so didn't realize this until the bill arrived.  After panicking, calling Drayton (who didn't answer and texted that he was in a meeting and would call back when he was out in a hour), I just sat for a moment.  I had Ella empty her wallet - God bless the child who thinks she should carry all her cash with her everywhere.  Our bill was $196 in total - yes, it's Singapore where everything is so expensive - and Ella had $140 in Singapore dollars and $31 US dollars (that the money changer wouldn't take because they were ones and they don't take ones).  

After some pondering, I told the kids to wait there and walked up to the table beside us which happened to have some Americans sitting at it.  The kids and I had actually noted them earlier in the evening since we hadn't seen many Americans at all during our first three weeks.  I walked up, knelt beside them, told them I was hugely embarrassed (and teaching my children humility) and then asked if I could borrow $60 from them and give them $31 US dollars and send them the full $60 Singapore dollars as soon as I got home.  They were very gracious, lent me the money and gave me their email address which I took and told them I would email them for their mailing address (which I did as soon as I got in the taxi home).  Turns out they had been living in Singapore for about 8 months and had family visiting and were taking them out to dinner.

They saved me big time and I have to say that is the first time I've ever forgotten my wallet and it could have turned out so much worse.  I owe them a huge thanks and although I've done that already in an email to them, I might just send out a thank you to whomever was looking out for us today because we might have ended up washing dishes all night (or arrested for eating and not paying!!).  Thank goodness it ended well because it was a fun evening!