IF YOU WANT TO FEEL IMPORTANT, walk around Puerto Vallarta looking older and slightly better (or more) dressed than a college kid on spring break — and with a wedding ring on your finger.
My husband, Rick, and I were in Mexico last month and were surprised and somewhat flattered that, despite having quibbled for a full 10 minutes over whose turn it was to get the window seat on the plane, we gave the impression of being mature and respectable enough to garner solicitations to buy timeshares from roughly five out of every seven people we encountered.
The last I’d heard about timeshares was in the early 1990s, when my dad announced that hurricanes had ravaged the one my Uncle Herbert and Aunt Anita owned in Cancun. Invented in Europe in the 1960s, the timeshare industry today, as far as I knew, was nothing more than a little piece of nostalgia. Sort of like Demi Moore’s youth.
But not in Mexico. The come-ons started moments after our flight landed. Before clearing customs, a woman behind a counter lined with plastic palm trees wearing miniature sombreros told us she worked for the government and that she wanted to give us a discount card that would be valid at participating souvenir shops, car rental agencies and Hooters.
“All you need to do is give me a $20 deposit, and I will pick you up at your hotel tomorrow morning and take you to breakfast. Then, I will give you the card,” she said, her arms open wide like Ricardo Montalban on “Fantasy Island.”
“I don’t eat breakfast. We’d actually just like the card now, please,” I said. Then I thought back for a split second to the page in the Fodor’s guidebook warning about timeshare pitches. “Hey, this isn’t some sort of a time-share thing, is it?”
She dropped the smile and looked in an instant less like Julie McCoy playing shuffleboard on the “Love Boat” and more like Chucky with a freshly sharpened ax. “Well, excuse me for thinking you might want to see a brand-new property in the area. It’s a whole lot nicer than where you’re staying,” she said with a sneer.
That seemed to open up the solicitation faucet, which flowed nonstop from that moment on. Sitting down at a bar for a drink after dinner one night, we met a guy from Texas who had moved to Puerto Vallarta 10 months earlier. He chuckled at our timeshare stories. Then we told him we actually agreed to attend a 90-minute timeshare presentation after getting a written guarantee that we’d receive $300 in cash, a bottle of top-shelf tequila and two massage gift certificates.
He stopped laughing. “Seriously, if you’re going to do a presentation, then let me take you.”
We started laughing. “Ha, ha. No, really.” “I can’t offer you cash, but,” he said, lowering his voice and looking around dramatically. “Are you a Ratt fan? My buddy over there is in the band and you can party with him.”
A closeted ’80s heavy metal fan who probably would have chosen a Trans-Am over a Ford Explorer and a mullet over a normal guy haircut had he ended up settling anywhere south of the Mason-Dixon line, Rick’s jaw dropped. “Wow. I saw you guys at Hirsch Coliseum in Shreveport in 1986.”
The dude cleared his throat. “Well, actually, you wouldn’t have seen me then. I was the third lead guitarist in the Ratt reunion tour in 2004 when the band played some state fairs.” Rick gave him a high-five. “Cool.” Then he turned to me and pleaded, “Honey, can we do this timeshare thing instead? Then we can party with a guitarist from Ratt!”
We ultimately chose to honor our original presentation commitment and were taken around a sprawling resort called the Mayan Palace in a golf cart with a guy named Lolo who had spiky peroxide-blond hair and fashioned himself to be the Mexican Henny Youngman.
“Next, I show you the alligator pond, Where the wives send the husbands who drink too many margaritas,” Lolo cracked.
One hundred seventy-five minutes, four sales managers and 19 offers requiring down payments ranging from $50,000 to $449 later, we were unceremoniously shown to the back door. Those departing timeshare-less, as we were, were not invited for another ride in the golf cart, but given walking directions created by Mr. Magoo on how to navigate our way back to the property exit.
Which was OK with us, because we had the satisfaction of knowing that people in some countries — or at least one — think we look pretty important. And we still have (most of) a bottle of tequila to prove it. Salud!
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on July 12, 2007. Read the original PDF.