I'm not here to cram it down your throat.

So. Alisa and I ventured into the murky depths of time-share presentations last night. Yes, I know, I know. We didn't do it blindly, we both knew it would be high pressure sales. But, what can I say. I kind of wanted the plane tickets to Anahiem.

Anyway, let me take you along on our little adventure, and share some of the things we were able to experience.

First, there is Cole. Cole is the guy who is assigned to us. He spends the first ten minutes or so 'getting to know us'. Which means asking us a bunch of questions about where we come from, our family, how we met, etc. All this information flows around and past him as if he is covered in a thick layer of grease to keep things from holding firm. We then go in to another room to see the video presentation. It showed exotic locales, and people having fun. It was filled with testimonials of happy owners, etc. Anyway, it wasn't bad, it was a video. Then its back out to the room filled with small round tables, where each couple sits with their designated attack dog....er, I mean salesman. Cole begins by telling us, he isn't there to cram it down our throats, if it works for us, great, if not, thats fine too. Nice.

I quickly explain to him that we really aren't interested, and that it isn't in the budget. He responds that he isn't here to cram it down our throats, that he just wants to lay out the options and then let us make an informed decision. After a while of this, we relent, and listen to the whole shmebogen (word invented by co-worker Ben, pronounced like toboggan it just means everthing, sort of). Okay, neat destinations, and wow, what a neat system, credits, etc. You own it forever, followed by stories of how much this helped him and his estranged sister because they never got vacations growing up in their soon to be broken home, and he didn't even have a job when he bought into the program. Wow, Cole. Gotta say, you sound like a financial genius.

Anyway, at the end of his little thing, he shows us the prices. It costs 39,000$. Yeah, thats not a typo, you read it right. However, before you scoff, they can finance it. For only 10% down, and a monthly payment of 1050. Plus of course a yearly maintenance fee of like 600 bucks or something. All this could be mine. They of course had cheaper plans. Cheapest was like 2000 down and monthly of 300. I explain to Cole that its not in the budget. After everything is done, 401k, IRA, savings, mortgage, etc. etc. etc., I got 12 bucks a month (that seems small, but understand, everthing we spend is actually put on a budget line, so the twelve is really just extra). He tells us, for probably the 32nd time, that he isn't here to cram it down our throats, etc., etc. Then he goes and gets his supervisor. Who asks what the hangup is, again, we explain its too expensive (by the way, the supevisor is like 55 super tan, gold chains, etc. it was awesome).

Finally, we are done....not so fast. We stop off at one more table to just give them a 'review of how Cole did'. And are given one more option that would be 99 dollars a month. Sorry, I say, its still more than 12 right? Then its out of the budget.

Anyway, Alisa and I survived, we now have a free trip to Anahiem. And, we both agreed, that it was everything we thought it would be. I told her afterwards that I wanted rebuttal time at the end with all the other suckers (some of which I know where going to buy this thing). Just to point out, that if they took the 39,000 and put it in a simple money market account with 5% interest, they could take a vacation every year that cost 1900 dollars, and never touch the principle of 39,000. But, I really didn't want to cram it down their throats.