Find Out Why Timeshares Hate Earth Nation

If you are unaware, the casinos in Las Vegas give out a lot of free stuff to new guests, or visitors who look like they have money to throw around, or pretty much anyone really. There are coupons just out in the open to take, and there are people handing out everything from free rides to discounts to tickets for a bridge auction. Value can be extracted en masse if a person is crafty. A perfect playground for an alchemist to turn a whole lot of nothing into a handful of memories and fun times.

Knowing this, Awen and I dressed as spiffy as an impromptu drive to Vegas can allow and walked into the Luxor to be immediately snagged by a salesman. He asked if we were together, and we said we were on our anniversary. We wound up with tickets to a free show (Criss Angel), $100 worth of food vouchers that we spent on the buffet and Dick’s Last Resort, and a free 3 days in the Luxor, usable only after hell freezes over.

Protip: if you are a couple or family, or a couple of friends are ever in Vegas, always say you’re on your anniversary. The reason they give away free stuff is because they want you to leave Las Vegas with a bunch of memories so you come back. Giving a young couple an amazing experience is a crafty way to ensure a family comes back down not to far down the line.

Oh, yea. I almost forgot. Another reason they give away free stuff is because you have to sit through a timeshare presentation. It’s really amazing how well-crafted the systems of exploitation are here. I mean, it makes sense. I can feel the repressed anger of all these billionaire alpha males who project their micropenis insecurities by building the most giant and dazzling buildings in a close-quarters fight to attract the most attention. If a fisherman catches your eyes, he has taken the first step to taking your wallet.

(Above: a picture of where we went, taken from the website as we weren't allowed cameras)

This is where this story really begins. After being shuttled over to an estate a few minutes away from the strip in a limotruckbus, we sat and waited for a sales agent to call our name. I noticed that the salespeople who came out one by one seemed to be paired with a similar demographic. Old with old. Black with black. Business-types with other assholes who don’t know how to park.

Thus, I already smelled the game as our representative, Ericka, a young girl complaining about student loans, greeted us with an attitude which screamed “I hate this job.” The entire presentation, which consisted of her showing us the estate while asking targeted questions, was very well designed to manipulate an unaware person into thinking they found themselves in the presence of a new friend. As we walked out into a sandstorm, which was apparently very normal and doesn't bother any of the owners, she asked us what our idea of fun was, subtly opening the door to a conversation about parties. We told her we liked to stay in, which resulted in an immediate shift in her body language and her telling us she liked letting loose staying in with a bottle of wine.

After a while of dodging her attempts to find a way into our in-group, we wound up eating a free breakfast buffet, which we were told was a special treat as we had been set up with the expectation that they were only providing pastries and coffee. Amazing how that must happen every time. Here the conversation started to switch to business. She assured us that she knew we were not buying, but that she had a job to do.

What really threw a wrench in her plan was our talk about Earth Nation. Everything she was throwing out there was immediately countered by some benefit which the EN already provided us. She spoke about how much we must spend on hotels which traveling. We told her that we have a lot of properties that we can stay at for little to no cost. She countered by saying that we were staying at America's Best Value, and that our spontaneous lifestyle could benefit from the security of the RCI network. I countered that by saying it was redundant and that there was no way RCI was offering something remotely comparable. Sure, they may have these giant estate buildings across the globe, but do they have community? Nature? Love and friendship that only a non-reptilian heart can understand?

Ericka grew increasingly frustrated, which she was only able to half hide. It was weird being presented with some of her arguments. For instance, she was absolutely baffled that I had no aspirations to travel anywhere specific. I'm more than content to see and build the world as it chooses to present itself to me. I’m well aware that I’m on a trajectory to see the world on tour, and to ask for more would be greedy. In the past two months I've seen a significant portion of Oregon, some parts of California, and Las Vegas; and Hawaii is on our horizon.

The idea that someone could live for something other that personal pleasure, or live without “the necessities,” was completely alien to her Babylon programming. I had to stifle a chuckle when she went on a rant about how crazy it would be to live with just a tent. In Eugene, it’s a common site to see someone walking around with their tent and camping gear; wherever they rest their head is home.

I could see the sparks fly out of Ericka’s head when I told her that a friend not affiliated with Earth Nation choosing to live independently helping out lands he traveled to, had only made $2,000 over the last four years, but had traveled across the world and created a network of tens of thousands of friends in that time. Yes Ericka, it’s possible to not only survive, but to be quite happy living without the six figures of commission you make by exploiting timid and insecure people out of their hard earned money.

I imagine that’s probably bizarre for some of you, too. Think of this: if you have a culture that exists to progress and evolve, you must have a counter-culture to counter-act the damage that progress causes. For every new thing the culture generates, it stands to displace a previously working system. Together, a culture containing these two elements grows prosperous in the balance they create. One lives by growing money, the other lives independent of it. One lives in the Matrix, the other is free.