The plus of owning a timeshare is that it forces you to go on vacation each year. You buy into the program, you pay the annual fee(s), so you make sure that it's worth the cost. It's an investment in yourself and your family. You travel to places you might never visit if you had to justify the entire cost of the trip aside from the need to use the timeshare. But one thing they always sucker you into at these resorts is "Let us give you an update about how the program has changed. We'll give you free money for your time!"
This year's presentation was the most ridiculous I have ever heard. They wanted to sell us points for an additional week, but promised that those points would effectually be worth three weeks. Plus, they would supposedly take care of the car rental and flights for these trips. Well, the Devil is in the details of these arrangements, and usually, after you've bought into the program, you find the details aren't nearly as glorious as the salesperson described.
"But hey, now you'll be a V.I.P. member. Is it better to be a V.I.P.? Don't you deserve to treated like a V.I.P.?"
What really got me was the price of the program. Believe it or not, the salesman wanted us to invest $100,000 so we could supposedly spend three weeks in Hawaii (or anywhere else). Of course, this assumes they don't change their program in the future so the V.I.P. points are really only worth one week, and all the details they promise work out exactly as promised. But then, they wouldn't make any more changes to their program, right? They wouldn't want to sell you anything else in the future, right?
The mind boggles. I mean, you could nearly buy a real condo in Hawaii, that you could live in year-round, for that kind of money.
Anyway, after the presentation, we looked at our vouchers. What could we do with our free money? There were shops where we could purchase souvenirs. There were restaurants where we could enjoy a few nice meals. And then there was a little pottery studio, where we could pick out a project, paint it, and take it home with us. Now, that sounded like fun!
I painted lots of ceramics in my youth, but the pieces had always been completely fired. I painted them, sprayed them with a protective coating, and they were done. This studio gave the pieces an initial firing, that would allow the clay to be painted on. After that, they required an additional firing. Instead of paints, we were given a selection of glazes to use. For our first project, my wife and I each chose a tile. Then we got started.
As it was Kauai, the garden island of Hawaii, it rained several times while we painted. The hours sped past as we painted, and the rain beat down on the thin roof of the lattice-enclosed patio. Several cats strolled past, and one, named Captain Terrible, visited us regularly. He leapt onto the table, stepped over our work, and insisted on regular petting. But hey, you need a painting break now and then, right?
Some of the glazes were hard, while others were liquid. But a drop of water transformed the most solid of glazes back into liquid again. There was no white paint, so any place we wanted to remain white, like bubbles in the water, we left unpainted.
When my wife finished her first tile, she started another. By the time I finished my first tile, she had mostly finished her second. So I opted for a simpler project, a little ornament we could hang on our Christmas tree next year. That is, assuming we spend Christmas at home next year, and don't travel somewhere else instead.
The day we left Kauai, we stopped by the studio and picked up our projects. It was interesting to see how the colors had changed from being fired in the kiln. All our tiles were white after their initial firing, but mine had a tinge more red than my wife's pieces. Maybe that slight difference in the clay accounts for the water in my ocean scene being turquoise, while my wife's stayed a truer blue. Also, despite three coats, my water still looks faded and streaky. "Oh, that's the light shining through the water," my wife suggested. Sadly, the green lettering of Kauai on the tile got burned away, but the fish and squid came out good.
I didn't see any squid during my snorkels, but I did see an octopus. (Sadly, that was on the first day, before we bought our underwater camera). The squid are cool. They remind me of the giant squid in Matt Kindt's comic series Dept. H, which takes place in a research base seven miles beneath the ocean. The squid in my tile seem more amiable than in Matt Kindt's comic, and unlikely to attack a human observer. But hey, what do I know about squid? If I was smart, I never would have purchased a timeshare, and would never agree to sit through yet another "Let me tell you how our program has changed" presentation.
Dragon Dave
Thank you for your excellent article.
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