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Time-share pitch

In an attempt to get a free trip to Thailand, we attended a time-share pitch. It was both interesting and a bit uncomfortable. The guy who was recruiting people for the pitch asked Mary (who had left Aidan with a sitter) if she was married, and she said 'yes'. But then when we showed up for the tour, they quickly realized that they didn't have a prosperous married childless couple, but instead a Mom and a little kid and some random guy who was just hanging around. Not ideal prospects. Then, they did this song-and-dance where they try to add up all the money that you spend per year on vacations and then show how much less you'd spend with a time-share. Except, in our case, the amount spent per year was a lot _less_ than you'd spend on a time-share. The salesman (who was a trainee in sales, but had spent his last 10 years in IT in California) saw that particular problem before it arrived, so he dropped off the script and started ad-libbing some other random arithmetic that didn't really make sense. That caused his supervisor to panic (He's off the script!) and step in with a different spiel. Then, of course, I wanted to talk about Global Warming. "What sort of insurance and/or guarantees are offered in the event that this resort is destroyed in a typhoon or submerged by rising sea levels?" It occurs to me that, in retrospect, it may be rude to talk to Indonesians about rising sea levels. The sales agent (the new guy) was magnanimous in defeat. He gave us his email address and invited us to visit his family on Sumatra. And now I have a voucher for a free weekend in Phuket. Seems unlikely that I'll ever use it, though. You have to reserve a month in advance, though, so I guess I'll have to go to Thailand next winter.