Saturday, February 3, 2018

Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire - My Financial Friend

My Financial Friend
Having revealed my adventures on the arrangement of my financial advisor friend, I suppose I should elaborate a little on our relationship. He had called up wanting to know if I had any place in the country up near Beausejour for sale. He wanted to be closer to his cottage in Bird River. Well I didn’t have one, but I was sure if there was something there I would find it. Sure enough there were a couple and we went shopping. Wouldn’t you know it, he was extremely interested in the most expensive one. I shouldn’t have sold him short because it wasn’t too long before he had put the package together.
It was about four or five months before I heard from him again, this time to come and have a look at what he and his wife had accomplished. They put on a fondue party for the four of us and we made a night of it. They had indeed made many changes to the place to suit their needs and in fact, had plowed up a fair patch for a garden to the wife’s delight. It turns out that THAT was the sticking point to not selling the cottage. She had a formidable garden at the cottage and she wasn’t about to let that go to waste.
Next thing you know, I get a call to go look at the cottage to determine its value. They’re going to be out there on the weekend so his missus can dig out some of the root plants to transfer to their new house. “Sure” I say, “glad to come. Where is it?”
He gives me directions and on a bright sunny morning the Missus and I are off to spend a pleasant day on Lee River. It was absolutely beautiful scenery as we drove along, being careful not to miss the turnoff. We found the right road and turned down it to get to the cottage. It was fairly straight so I got up some speed until suddenly there was nothing in front of us other than blue sky. HOLY CRACKERS! I was about to drive off the face of the earth! I put on the brakes and crawled on further, thinking about the flat earth society. Creeping to the edge of the abyss, I discovered a steep slope that headed straight into the river. Fortunately there was a turn off just before you drove into it.
So this was the Lee River challenge. It was just like the adventure of the BB hills off Strathcona Street in Winnipeg. If you didn’t do a hard right at the bottom of the hill, you ended up in the drink, only in Winnipeg it was a big oak tree as Lloyd Smith found out.
We pulled into the yard and found our friends working diligently about the place. He was busy raking the yard while his wife was grumpily digging out her root bulbs and placing them in boxes. Well, they both needed a break so we sat down for tea and surveyed the landscape. We decided to hold an open house there, especially trying to attract the boaters going by.
The open house was a total bust, including my fishing efforts. I never even got one bite. Fortunately, my financial friend had a family member who was willing to buy the place and I suggested he do that privately, which suited my friend, saving him a commission. I even helped him with the offer. I had been way out of my league in that transaction and was happy it was over.

That was the last I heard from my friend until the cottage assessment came up.

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