Michael, our new best friend - June 1

After spending a free night at our luxurious motel, we had to attend a sales seminar at 11:30 this morning. It was sponsored by Fairfield, a company that owns resorts all over the world and sells timeshares. Our meeting was with Michael, a typical fast-talking salesman who acted like our best friend in the whole world. He told my mom that she looked like my sister and she ate it all up while I rolled my eyes. After he found out my mom was a social worker, he told us his mother and sister are social workers too and how much he admired them. Yeah right. Michael took 2 whole hours to go through his spiel and then finally got down to business. The timeshare he was selling would cost me $250 a month for the next 10 years (total cost = $30,000) and would entitle me to stay in one of their resorts for one week a year . I would also have to pay a monthly "maintenance" fee of around $50 for as long as I owned the timeshare, which could be the rest of my life. After I pointed out these facts to Michael, he told me I was forgetting about all the "benefits of joining their family." When I told Michael that I was a student and definitely couldn't afford one of these timeshares, his mood and manner changed instantly. No longer was he our best friend. He became somewhat sullen and withdrawn. He told me his boss was probably going to fire him and he needs to feed his children. He told me how "magnanimous" he was to spend his precious time on a penniless student like me. Blah blah blah blah.

I was finally able to extricate myself from Michael and then I met "Joe" who was the manager. Joe pretended to fill out a customer satisfaction survey that he assured me wouldn't take long. He asked me innocuous questions for a few minutes, then suddenly sprung another sales pitch on me. He pulled out a special program called the "Discovery" program that cost "only" $3000 and had some benefits to it that I don't remember. By this point I had spent almost 3 hours at this place and I was getting tired, hungry and frustrated. Joe sensed something was wrong and asked me what the matter was. Through clenched teeth, I laid it on him: "I've been here 3 hours and you guys said it would only take an hour or two. I want my deposit back and I want to leave. Now." And then I stood up and walked out of Joes' office without saying another word. Some lady gave me my $20 deposit back (which I had to leave when I signed up for this) and I was finally free. So, was it worth it? If I had to do it again, I would probably just pay for the stupid hotel room myself and spend the day enjoying myself rather than trying to extricate myself from a bunch of smarmy, high-pressure salesmen.

We missed the Indian buffet but had a great meal at a vegetarian restaurant and then headed for the Grand Canyon, which we wanted to see at sunset.