So far, you’ve indulged me Part I, Part II, and Part III of what I have to in retrospect call the worst vacation I have ever taken. I developed such trauma around this trip that I had to stop recounting its tragedy in the middle of the telling because what started as something I could laugh about became tragic. At this point, you have probably said, there can’t be anything worse than getting on the wrong flight and having a one-vehicle collision with a concrete pillar.
You might be right: the following events aren’t the worst that happened on the vacation, but they are noteworthy nonetheless. You know from reading the other parts that yes, we made it to the resort at check-in time. The concierge met us and guided us to our 16th-floor room which had an attractive view of the ocean and the boardwalk. The southeast coast had a lower-than-normal cold snap, so we wouldn’t be able to enjoy hearing the ocean from an open window, but no mind because I could always open the curtains and look out at the landscape.
On his way out, the last thing the concierge did was present me with a package and say, “I’ll see you tomorrow at 9:30.”
Wait, what?
I know what you’re thinking. Didn’t I know that I was on a time-share vacation? Why, yes, I did, but at this point, we had already been suckered in as pseudo-owners who had purchased actual blocks of time. In fact, this trip was a prepaid block that I was redeeming. So no, I didn’t expect to go down for a presentation that ate up a part of my relaxation time, where I really just planned to sleep in and eat junk food. A few things made four-hour time slot bearable:
There was torrential rain that prevented us from doing anything outside of the resort (I will talk more about this later).
The second I walked into the room, I saw a former student who was there with his grandparents. He’d been a student in my fall 2022 and spring 2023 courses (he had to repeat the course because, in the fall, he liked the student experience but not the student effort).
They did serve breakfast. Though adequate and filling, it was free and was enough to satisfy both me and Ayden, whom I would let go back to the room.
The concierge, though persistently trying to sell me a package until I became frank and broke it down into widowhood terms, looked like one of my cousins, so not only was he easy on the eyes, he was easy to talk to.
There’s a whole routine that salespeople in several industries go through. If you’ve ever purchased a car at a dealership, you'll recognize the routine. In the end, it’s just a waiting game. In car dealerships, as they attempt to sell and negotiate, they “go to the back and contact their manager” to see if they can offer you a better interest rate or deal. The longer you hold out, the better the deal gets. But patience is involved. The catch is that salespeople know that most people don’t like to wait and often jump at the first few deals. My trick? I go in with a book and snacks to hunker down for the long haul I have waited at the Department of Motor Vehicles. Moreover, I have waited in hospital waiting rooms with numerous family members from my grandmother to my father to finally my late husband. There’s an art to patience.
Once the concierge saw that the answer was no, he told me that his manager was going to come to sign me out, and this lady came over and put three more offers on the table to which I had to diligently say no. Finally, I was released from their care and meandered back to the room watching the sheets of rain batter the beach. From the 16th floor, there was not much of a view as the coastline was shrouded in a dense fog that made it difficult to see beyond the balcony.
The rain worsened and though I felt safe from flooding being so far up, I wasn’t as confident of my safety when the emergency blare went off on my cellphone and the following text message went on display.
I could have dealt with that. In fact, after returning from downstairs, I was fully prepared to stay curled up with a good book and had settled down to do just that when Ayden came out of the bedroom.
“The floor’s wet Mom.”
In retrospect, I should not have been so understanding of wet weather inside of a room that I paid for. In fact, by the timeshare concierge’s logic, if I had been in a hotel, I would have demanded a return of my money for the inconvenience. But the way the wind and rain were whipping, I excused the room and the rain and told Ayden that it was raining so hard that we could not surprised that water was seeping through the window.
“But the water is not coming from the window. It’s coming from the floor.” I explained that it probably had made its way over from the window to the middle of the floor.
I was wrong.
Not only was the water seeping up through the floorboards in the bedroom Ayden was occupying, but it was also coming up through the floorboards in the living room area. It was also leaking from the balcony door.
Are you kidding me?
I called the concierge who called maintenance and said if he doesn’t fix it, we can relocate to another room. This was the last thing I wanted to do as I was settled.
The maintenance man showed up an hour later after the warning time had elapsed and the rain had slowed down. His solution was to wipe up the wetness and give me a thumbs up. The real solution was echoed by several staff earlier in regards to the weather: the next day would be sunny so there would be no need to worry about the rain.
It was only one day into this vacation and it was more tiring, much like typing this blog is. Can I wrap it in the next one?