time(share) well spent...

alright, i apologize for being MIA... i thoroughly jumped into enjoying travel and seeing people during my break here, and have been away from a computer for a good long time. as those of you waiting patiently for replies to emails can attest...so i made it back to the US... adjusted for the time difference... and set off for the first place that would serve as "full immersion" therapy for the aversion to crowds, lights, and all things stimulating that i experienced 4 months ago on my last break. yep, we set off for vegas...it was a wonderful experience... with very few notable exceptions. the biggest and only real complaint i'd like to air right now...the aggressiveness that was displayed by the timeshare recruiters was unbelievable. i applaud them for their efforts, which were truly impressive. we were targeted as a lesbian couple on walkways, in casinos, leaving hotels, at traffic intersections... even walking into a pharmacy. don't tell me that straight couples get approached as much... we had couples walking all around us, and they would step AROUND these folks to get to us. i would say we probably had about 3 good days of walking... and got approached well over 50 times. and that's a lowball number. i figure about once every 15 or 20 minutes we were fending off someone. there were times we were still shaking off one when a second one was waiting in the wings to approach us. WTF? are they playing a zone defense here? now, i'm not really a person who likes to lie... which is fortunate, since i'm really bad at it. so we started off by being polite and telling the truth. we found the truth was effective, but inefficient. 5 minutes of conversation to just say "no". by the end of the week, we had told so many stories to these people... "do we live together? naw, we just met." "our flight leaves this afternoon" "we've already seen that show" "no hablo ingles" "yep, i'm a marine." ...pretty much anything to draw a close to the conversation. oh, and my favorite, which i never got to use... "oh, i'd LOVE to own property out here... love the weather, love the entertainment... but i can't STAND the timeshare peddlers..."