Free Show for the Insane

I think my husband is part evil. No, scratch that. I think he’s a glutton for punishment. We had been up since 4am, been on a plane for over five hours, hadn’t even checked into our room yet and suddenly he’s agreeing to some two hour “presentation” on time shares. The woman that roped us in was a fast moving, smooth talking woman from New York with bleached blond hair, bright circus makeup and a huge toothy smile. She had lipstick on her teeth and a gleam in her eye as she first circled then approached us. Her first words were, “How would you like to see a free show while you are here?” How could we resist? I barely had time to pee before we were whisked off to answer a bunch a questions, confirm those answers and get shuttled somewhere else. I had been in Vegas for not even two hours.
Sitting down with a rep is a lot like playing cat and mouse. They’ll ask you silly questions and you give silly answers. You circle around the cold, hard facts (like price & interest rate) all the while thinking you could just be the cat in this game. The longer you play hard to get, the harder they try. Reps consult managers, managers come out to sweet talk you. Suddenly, you are in the driver’s seat and they’re saying things like, “we normally don’t make this kind of offer…this has never been done before…my boss is going to kill me, but…” On and on it goes until finally someone gives in, gives up. By the time the interest rate was finally muttered we knew we had won. Over 15% was a ridiculous rate no matter how many free trips to Hawaii they would throw in. With NoThankYou firmly planted in our mouths and a resolution to walk away in our hearts we got our free tickets and got the hell out of there. Welcome to Vegas.