I'll Take "Weeks" for Ten Thousand, Bob

Today's blog is brought to you by the word: timeshare.

For those of you who don't know what a timeshare is, here's a brief primer, which some people pronounce "primmer" - why is that? First an advertisement appears before you as if by relentless and incessant ALLCAPS magic for a FREE TV, or a FREE DINNER CRUISE, or something else that turns out to be CRAPPY, but it's free. All you have to do is sit through a 1 hour presentation. You think, hey, I can do that. So you sit through a 2 or 3 hour presentation and then get pressured to buy a ten thousand dollar timeshare and you ultimately give in because they make it sound so cheap at 99 dollars a month for 37 years and even though the timeshare you buy is in Dusty Shithole, Kansas, you can simply exchange it for a week somewhere way more fabulous. And you have to buy the more expensive VIP red time slot so you have "more exchange power". Then you go on the crappy dinner cruise, which is really a couple of watery screwdrivers and some cold cuts and stale bread, and come back home seasick and ten thousand dollars in debt.

On top of that debt, you pay a "maintenance fee" of eight hundred some-odd dollars a year, which is more than many people pay for a week's lodging. So in case you haven't been doing the math, that's 10,000 smackers, plus the cost of financing those 10,000 smackers which on most loans would be another 10,000 smackers, plus the cost of lodging for a week, all so you can go on vacation somewhere and stay for free!

Now, you also have to pay an exchange fee with RCI or somebody for maybe $100 every year for the privilege of never getting the location you want when you want it. After a few years of aggravation, and perhaps some conclusionary analysis that the scoundrels oversell these imaginary pieces of property and that RCI is just another TicketMaster, where you're forced to pay a virtual scam artist/business model genius middleman to get in the way, you sell your schrewd investment for a cool $2,000.

THAT is a timeshare.

A certain member of my family, let's call him Dad, owns (and I use the term loosely) one of these cursed vacation-weeks-on-paper. He owns in Lake Tahoe, but we wanted to go to Hawaii. When I couldn't find one single condo in Hawaii for the next 13 months on RCI's lame online website, I called them up, because surely, I must have been doing something wrong. Some girl from India told me that Hawaii was indeed booked up and I asked her when the next anything from Hawaii was available.

"I can't look it up that way," she said. "You have to pick a location and specific week that you want."

Grrr...

"I want Hawaii in November."

"There is nothing available at that time in that location."

"Really?"

"It's a popular place. You have to book that way in advance."

"Like how way in advance?"

"Two years."

Did I mention that we have the VIP red time slot? If you want to make customer service laugh condescendingly at your feeble attempts to demand some level of importance, mention that you have the VIP red time slot. You know, for more "exchange power".

Since I can painstakingly look up more unavailable places all by myself online, I thanked her and tried to hang up, but not before she tried to sell me a 5 year renewal to RCI (because she could gladly help me with THAT transaction). Her lame online system must not have informed her that we just did one of those renewals the last time I was accosted after calling them a month ago.

Timeshares are great, if only for the guy that invented the concept and for the people who sell them. But unless you buy the very unit you wish to stay in during the same week every year, or you like to take the kids to Dusty Shithole, Kansas every year, save your pennies.

What about you? Any of you with a timeshare nightmare? Or are you one of the lucky ones that gets what you want out of it? And what do you know about Ocean City Maryland, because there's a bazillion openings there.

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Nanny Goats Shout Out

Sue Doe-Nim (and her vagina) gets a big shout out for adding Nanny Goats and Panties to her blog roll. And if you don't get the vagina crack (oh, that might not be the best choice of words), check out her blog post from last Wednesday regarding such things. It's wickedly funny. And then read some more. She'll crack (good word choice this time) you up.