I’ve been AWOL

We had a family wedding this weekend. In a weird coincidence, we got a phone call from a telemarketer bribing us to sit through a timeshare presentation in the SAME TOWN as the wedding so we went over the night before to sit through it.

I suspect that no one else will be shocked by the timeshare presentation but the fact that it took place in this VERY SMALL TOWN is totally bizarre. The bribe was airfare and three nights of hotel in any city with an international airport in North America. And he didn’t really say it was a timeshare presentation, just that it was a 90 minute presentation. When we got there, we discovered that our sales pitch guy used to play basketball with Spouse’s brother. We broke the news right away that we weren’t going to buy anything.

If you’ve never sat through a timeshare presentation, basically they try to convince you to buy a week of vacation time in one place (because you can use it to travel the world!). If you’ve got a low tolerance for dodgy hotels and a job that guarantees you won’t be shitcanned, it’s a great idea. Also, the city where you get the presentation is ALWAYS the MOST POPULAR destination which makes YOUR timeshare the MOST VALUABLE and then you can trade it to go ANYWHERE.

My mom has a timeshare. She loves it. But then she changed jobs and now doesn’t have enough vacation time to use the vacation weeks that she’s locked into paying for. Right.

So the bribe is really only airfare and TWO nights of hotel, plus you have to travel on a Tuesday, and you can’t travel on almost any holiday or 7 days before and after New Year. Also, it’s not FREE because you still have to pay $100-130 to get the “activation package”.

What am I trying to say here? It’s not worth sitting through these presentations. Ever. Really. We’ve sat through three now and they are all the same. And the ‘catch’ for the reward is the same. Where the hell are we going to go for two nights on a TUESDAY?

The wedding was nice. There was a lot of family, a lot of beer, and a lot of dancing. I suspect there is NOT video of me, Spouse and his cousin doing the Soulja Boy dance.