So, as you can see, it was pretty ugly on Monday. You may also notice that the picture posted above was taken at the resort’s pool, which we lounged around for a couple of hours. And by lounged around, I actually mean swam in. Yes, during the thunderstorm warning. This was my honeymoon, bitches! It’s going to take some actual lightning and/or a cyclone to keep me from floating down the lazy river sipping on a pina colada! Those clouds ain’t nothing!
The rain held off not only during our time at the pool, but during mini-golf as well. One thing Jeremy neglected to mention is that I started our golf escapade off with a hole in one on the very first hole. Yeah, that’s right. Of course, the next 17 holes were filled with nothing but heartache, and I ended up losing by ten points, but I am savoring that fluke of a moment for as long as possible. Here is a little taste of my victory:
And, for balance, here is a pic of Jeremy, making the quintessential Jeremy Face as he kicked my ass in the Pirate Cave, or whatever that thing was called:
Not much else really happened on Monday, now that I think about it. We ate some good seafood at Captain George’s and experienced what would be the first of many timeshare sales pitches. It seems like everywhere you go in Myrtle Beach, someone is trying to get you to come to a timeshare sales presentation. It starts out innocently enough. You’re leaving a restaurant and a nice, clean-cut young man will nonchalantly make a comment about the weather or the food, and trying to be hospitable you’ll comment back, and then they have you in their death trap.
Where are you from? He’ll ask. Delaware, you’ll reply. Oh, really? I have a cousin who went to the U of D, he’ll comment back. Say, are you guys in town for a couple of days? Are you planning on seeing any shows? Visting any museums? Going out to eat?
Of course you’ll have to answer yes to one of these questions, but if you didn’t he’d probably come up with something else. Planning on buying gas? Sleeping? Walking? Peeing?
Then he’ll offer you something fantastic, like free tickets to a show, a free dinner or two, or sometimes even just cash. The catch is, they want you to stop by one of their 8473274234341 local timeshare resorts for a “60-90 minute” presentation where a group of salespeople will try to get you to buy into the resort. You get all the comps after you complete the presentation.
We have no intention of buying a timeshare, since we already have one mortgage and are trying to overhaul this place little by little, but these salespeople don’t want to hear you say no. I’m suspecting that they get paid based on how many seats they fill, and they are relentless. A polite “no thanks” isn’t enough- they only up the ante. Lying and saying you’re leaving the next day, already own a timeshare somewhere else, or can’t afford to own there doesn’t work either, because they have comebacks for everything.
I don’t know if it was Jeremy’s Phillies hat or my pasty skin that tipped them off that we weren’t locals, but we were big targets for these salesmen, to the point that it was incredibly annoying to walk down the street in the main part of town. Eventually we learned to spot these guys from a mile away, and also learned that “Visitor’s Center” is not a really a resource for out-of-towners staffed by a friendly old lady who wants to draw you maps to her favorite restaurant, but actually just a place for a bunch of timeshare salesmen to hand out around brochures of places they can give you discounts to go to if you come take the tour of their property while giving their spiel.
Although it’s in Mr. Nice Guy’s nature to be exceedingly friendly, I eventually had to grow balls of steel when I heard “Hey guys, where are you from?” and just say “Not interested, thanks!” and keep walking. Like I said, this is my honeymoon, bitches! Take your pushy salespitch and go stand in a thunderstorm with it.
