So a few years ago, I won a trip to Florida at a boat show in NY. It came in 2 parts, 4 days and 3 nights in Orlando, and 3 days and 2 nights in Daytona Beach. Unbeknown to me the trip was really just a secret interrogation session and ploy to make us buy timeshares... twice. Our first trip to Florida, we visited Chrissy's parents just south of Sarasota. To get our free hotel in Orlando, we had to endure a presentation and a tour of the timeshare. 180 minutes of telling salesman after salesman that we were not interested. We believed it was finally over... however the pain had been prolonged in our second trip.
During our second trip to Daytona, we had clearly checked the "no" box for a presentation, but apparently there really was no choice. The second sales woman was pretty nice... at first. Her fiance was from around where I use to live in Rochester which was a quaint little coincidence. However while we became more comfortable with this saleswoman, we joked about the fact that we grabbed a quick drink before our "90 minute presentation." She immediately turned serious, and told us, "Ohh, if you have been drinking at all we cannot take you." My quick remark was that we had only had some coke, (well, we did... with a splash of jack) in a half joking way thinking that she was kidding... she wasn't. Luckily she let that slide, because as much as we were dreading our presentation, it was the payment for our hotel room. Without it we would be SOL.
Moving on, after eating breakfast with her she brought us to another hotel, where they interrogated us about how much we would be willing to spend on a timeshare. We went through a few successions of more aggravating salespeople maintaining our stance..."It's not the right time for a timeshare, we are saving for a wedding." Finally three hours later (seriously) we were free from their clutches.
Our first line of business after leaving the time share was to hit the beach. I bought a surfboard to hit some waves but the waves were pretty meek, so I splashed around on the board while Chrissy caught some sun.
Later that night we decided to howl at the moon and break some misdemeanors, so we went out on the town to see what we could muster. We found ourselves in a night club... where we were one of the only ones representing the caucasian persuasion. We did see a larger white girl on a stripper pole... or building support not quite sure. After being flashed by her one too many times, we decided to vacate. We found a Hookah bar down the road and Chrissy hadn't had a hookah before. I had a few before in the Middle East and this place had some kickin flavors. It was an Egyptian run place with crazy mixed music with a screen playing 80's videos not matching the music playing in the bar. Next to us were a group of teenagers blowing bubbles with the smoke in them. After chilling with the Egyptians for a while we toured around the city and a few more clubs and called it a night.
The next few days we ventured up and down the coast, getting my rear whooped in mini golf and trying not to hit kids with my car on the beach... or having them hit me. (cool thing about Daytona is you can drive your car on the beach).
In the waning days of our rain or shine trip, we took a (gambling middle age drunk boat) cruise. It was a 5 hour tour. I really thought the boat was going to sink however, It didn't. It was five hours so it could float outside the US coast and legally gamble.
This boat was elevator music tacky. It had all the trimmings. Sketchy characters, the struggling musician playing his Oboe, and the middle aged drunkards. This boat was not whole without James and Chrissy, and we milked it for all it was worth...in the slots. Of course Chrissy made out 5 dollars plus, while I lost all 25 dollars. I will never gamble again...unless its with my life. Chrissy's the lucky one I guess...no wait... I'm the lucky one :)
Struggling Oboe Player
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