Oh Susannah, Don’t you cry for me.

I was unpacking my suitcase fifteen minutes after we arrived in Branson. The phone rang and I answered thinking it was my in-laws down the hall. “Hi, Mrs. Hackablag?” “It is Huckablog.” “Sorry, Mrs. Huckablog, this is Candy with guest services. How is your condo?” “Everything is great so far, thanks.” “Mrs. Huckablog, we were wondering if you would like to come to an orientation for Whinedamn resorts, it is just 90 minutes long, and we will give you 120 dollars, in cash, for attending.” “No, thank you. Have a nice afternoon.” Click.

I went about my afternoon, sort of thinking about that sales call. I ate dinner, visited some dinosaurs, met Elvis….still thinking about that call. I figured it out: 90 minutes, 120 dollars. That is what, 80 dollars an hour? That is pretty good. Hum. If I had 120 dollars I could pay for my little er, indiscretion. Everyone could go ride the train and I could sit and smile for an hour and a half and then meet them in time for lunch. I did not really want to ride the train anyway, and it would be ninety minutes free of toddler wrangling. I called Candy back, and she was THRILLED to talk to me. She asked how old I was, if we were above a certain income bracket (barely Candy, but you do not need to know that.) and what The Husband and I did for a living. She informed me that she had a spot for us to be “orientated” on Saturday morning, but my husband would have to come with me because of my age and since he is the “main bread winner” (and old.) Great, now I had to convince The Husband that listening to a sales pitch would be better than riding a scenic railway. It did take some time, but finally I talked him into it, on the one condition that I would do all of the talking and the saying no. (Remind me to tell you sometime about our crazy expensive cookware.)

Saturday morning we got up early so we had time to pack, check out, and get The Son settled with MMiL and FFiL. We walked in to this lounge type thing and saw dozens of couples sitting on cheap furniture. Half of them looked like rich, old retirees and the other half looked like middle class working people. We applied our sticky name tags with our names spelled wrong, and watched as various salespeople poured through the doors. A woman named Susannah came smiling to us, and lead us up into a hot, crowded room filled with lots of tiny tables. She spent a good five minutes pumping us for information, or getting to know us—you decide. What do we do, where did we meet, where did we go on our honeymoon, how often do we vacation, where did you go to school, where are you from? “Oh, I grew up twenty minutes away!” (I chose to ignore the fact her name tag said she was from Fairbanks AK). “Oh, I went to school at insert Alma Mater” (Really? You have a degree? Does selling timeshares really pay that well? ((then again, I have several degrees and I spend my days wiping applesauce off chins and singing songs about spiders. Never mind.))

After several minutes this little, overly tan guy walked in. His name rhymed with Fake-o. You could see the gray roots of his dyed black hair. He looked like he was either wearing heavy foundation or tanned daily. He went into this whole spiel about the links between health, vacations and living longer and working too much and blah blah blah. Every other sentence he would insert a….dramatic pause. He had so many…..dramatic pauses that I briefly wondered if he was having a series of small strokes. When he was done talking and pausing he showed us a video of lovely suites filled with average Americans singing the praises of Whinedam resorts. (none of the suites looked remotely like the ones that we stayed in that week), it was full of phony sounding statistics, and I could read the fine print from my spot. The organization responsible for these “facts”? The World Vacation Institute. Oooh, that sounds official. Then Fake-o told us how he had a heart attack “a year ago this month” and just fourteen days after quadruple bypass surgery he was on a beach in California, with his small son, at a Whinedam resort. He showed us a framed photo of the silhouette of a small boy holding hands with some guy running down the beach. He quickly waved it in front of our faces and then put it back on a shelf. Since we were at the front table, I could see the picture fairly well. I am pretty darn sure it was not Fake-o in the picture. It really, really looked like the picture that came in the frame. Also? FFiL had a quadruple bypass this time last year and spent some of his recovery time at our house. He sure as hell was not in any shape to be gallivanting on a beach fourteen days later. I call BS on Fake-o.

When Fake-o was finished with his brief work of fiction, Susannah took us on a tour of the compound, and it was lovely. I would definitely enjoy staying there as I vacationed. As we were walking she casually said, “I will be up front with you, it costs sixty-two nine.” That is exactly how she said it, sixty-two nine. I guess I was confused by what it was exactly that she wanted us to buy (it is a deed ((um, huh?)) for the rights to use Whinedam condos for a certain amount of “points” a year. Confused yet?), because I kept trying to figure out what dollar amount sixty-two nine was (that would be $62,900). I heard The Husband choke behind me. We should have just left right then and asked for our $120 while admitting that we were never going to spend that much money on a condo we could only use three weeks a year. Instead we continued the tour. I asked intelligent questions, oohed and aahed at the appropriate times, and then saw a clock. Our 90 minute “orientation” had been going on for over two hours. I told Susannah we needed to hurry this along, we had to meet our family, she rushed us into a VERY LOUD room, crammed with people. (When I brought up this detail to The Husband later on he said he noticed the same thing, and thinks they do that on purpose to overload people’s senses. They get nervous and hot and are more likely to rush and say “Yes” without giving it the thought 63 grand deserves.)

I told her we were interested but not ready to commit today. (I was trying to be nice Susannah!) She had to go get her manager to talk to us before we left. This anorexic looking girl, a few years older than me, came up with her eyes all bulging out. The first words out of her mouth were, “So how much can you put down today?” Er. I might have been playing along a little to well. The Husband looked panicked. (He told me when we got in the car I was lying so well he even believed me, that is amazing because usually I am a HORRIBLE liar.) I said we were not prepared to make a commitment right away. (Please let me leave scary lady, I just came to pay for my ticket!) She said, “Well you have to make a commitment today or you lose this good deal.” “Well, I am sorry, with the economy the way it is, it would be foolhardy of me to agree to spend this much on a non-necessity.” “You are looking at it the wrong way, instead of thinking about saving to spend for your vacations, you have to spend to save.” I could not suppress the giggles escaping my lips on that one. I think it ticked her off, because next she said, “You know, financially savvy people never have to think about it. They just say yes right away,”. Great. First you make me late, then you scare me with your eyes, and now you are insulting me? Does that really work on anybody? I chose to negate telling her about all of those financial tests that I studied for (and mostly passed), and just gave her a firm. “No, thank you. We are not interested.” She flipped over her piece of paper and then proceeded to give us a BETTER DEAL on something called the “VIP” package. Oh, so this is like buying a used car? You thought I was just trying to negotiate? I just want to leave, and never speed through a certain county again! “No, Thank You. We cannot commit to that much money. Especially not with your seventeen percent (!!!) interest rate.” “But, you can get financing on your own with a lower interest rate.” “How can we do that if you want us to agree right now?” “You just pay the $6,000 down and figure out the payments later.” “No, thank you. We cannot commit that much money.” (Dear God, let me out of here!) Scary eye lady huffed off without even saying “Bye”.

I looked over at Susannah, she had tears welling up in her eyes. Was she faking? Maybe, probably even, but I believe she was really upset. She saw her big fat commission fly away. I patted her on the shoulder and told her that she did a good job, that scary eye lady ruined it for her by pressuring us so hard. She gave me her personal email and cell number in case we changed our mind. She then had to bring over some old guy with a bulbous nose, blood shot eyes, and smelling vaguely of stale Bud Light to “check us out.” As soon as Susannah left, he sat down and said, “I understand why you said no. Here let me tell you a better deal.” He brought out more papers and gave us yet another price discount. I was amazed at the sheer tenacity of these people. I no longer had the patience for tact at this point. Our ninety minute “orientation” had turned into a three hour interrogation session. “No. We have to go now, can I keep these papers to think about it (and by think about I mean broadcast it all over the internet)?” “Oh, No, we can’t let you take the inventory.” Whatever dude. “Fine, we really need to leave.” He sighed, led us to the front desk. A weary looking lady counted out $120 in twenties into my hand, I turned on my heel and marched out, relieved to finally be free.

When we were outside, the first words out of The Husband’s mouth were, “How much do you think the timeshare would cost if they stopped giving $120 to people like us?” Good point darling. Oh well, we were $120 richer and had at least gotten some good blog fodder from our morning not riding the train.

Filed under Boy is my face red, Time Suckers | Comments (5)