how to have fun with a really cheap digicam

I've been visited by the ghost of christmas partying!!!

So last Sunday, Jay and I had quite an unusual experience. We had got a call a few days earlier that we had "won" a "free" digital camera and a 2 night holiday from a draw I had entered us in a few weeks before. I put this in quotation marks because it was really a ploy to get us to go to a 3 hour "seminar" on why we should buy time shares for a resort condo in Banff. We figured, 'what the hell?' if anyone could weather 3 hours of high pressure sales for a free camera, it's us. After all, Jay is a master hustler himself, and besides, we don't have any money for them to take anyway!!!

So we go.

Before we get in the door, we agree that Jay will be in charge, because he knows what he's doing. The first thing we notice is that everyone there was chosen from the draw because they are married couples. You sign in and then hang out in the waiting area (couches and a coffee table littered with brightly coloured magazines for resort destinations) until your own personal sales rep comes and takes you into a lounge type room where every threesome gets their own table, complete with a coffee and doughnut bar to grease the wheels of conversation. Jay notices that at each table, the sales rep sits next to, and addresses the half of the couple that is the same gender as him or herself. In other words, the chicks talk to the chicks, the guys talk to the guys. Our girl makes nice with us and asks us a whack of probing questions for her questionaire; everything from our holiday budget to the date of our anniversary. At one point she gets up to go take care of her "dry throat" (never mind that there's water on every table). When she gets back, she says that she "ran into her boss" on the way back to the table, and he told her to tell us that "they don't check with Revenue Canada," and that we should lie about our yearly income so that we'll still qualify for the two night stay in Banff.

Then, we're lead into a seminar room with all the other couples for a spiel and a movie - and then another spiel and a movie. It's just like watching an info-mercial (or a cult) only with less cameras (as far as I could tell, anyway). Each sales rep sits faithfully by his or her couple through the whole thing, to inspire audience participation, to help us turn to the right page in our bible - I mean brochure- and to answer any questions we might have. At one point during the film presentation, I absent-mindedly cross my arms over my chest and our girl asks me if I'm cold. Jay whispers to me not to do it again, because she's reading my body language and crossed arms mean they're gonna have to put the squeeze on us extra strong. At another point, I notice our girl has dozed off beside me, and I wonder if her short lived career (she told us she'd only been there a week) is going to last much longer.

When it's over, our girl asks us if we need to use the bathroom, and our trip is carefully supervised so that we don't have any 'alone' time to communicate with each other in private. Then we're lead into yet another lounge type room to discuss the exciting possibilities of a time share "points" program in Banff. Our girl, apparently having given up on us, sends in the big guns: an attractive mediteranian-looking boy in a pin-stripe suit who can't be much older than 21, wearing faux bling on every finger. His performance is impressive, and he gives us time to our selves to "talk it over and think about the possiblilities". When he comes back, he has one more special offer for us; they're giving away 20 free cruises to the first people to sign up for the program, and there are only 7 left! More importantly, he shows us on the brochure, the offer expires on August 16, which - guess what! - is the date of our anniversary (which - guess what! - we told our girl at the beginning during the questionaire segment of our afternoon. Jay noticed the date stamp on the brochure was still fresh & smudgable when he gave it to us) !!!! We decline and he says he'll send over the 'gifting consultant' so we can sign our release form for the camera and be on our way. Another pretty young thing comes to our table and she says she'll let us sign for our camera... after we consider one more low, low offer. She slashes some numbers, shows us how much we'll save, and we decline yet again. Okay, she says, just sign this form and we'll be on our way. We sign it. She takes it and goes. We're still sitting there. I say to Jay, "so, should we go then?" He looks behind me with a grin on his face and says, "Just wait, there's one more."

Sure enough, there is soon an attractive older lady at our table, looking every bit the sexy modern high school teacher, telling us it's still not too late to sign up. With many apologies, we tell her the bottom line is we're just too broke. Jay starts making something up about our money being tied up in a down payment for house (I had to hold my breath to keep from laughing out loud) and she finally gives up. She leads us to the 'see-you-later/not-if-I-see-you-first room' to give us our free camera and a certificate for a 2 night stay at one of their resorts in Banff (which we must call a 1-800 # to register for, and for which there will be a $150 confirmation fee).

Finally, we made it out into fresh air and daylight with a free camera and a handy snot rag in its own envelope. Of course our camera is of the 'mini' key-chain variety and looks like it cost about two bucks. As you can tell from the picture at the top if this story, it's not exactly high-res either. You slide the view-finder out of the body of the camera just like those crappy little cameras you order out of Archie comics when you're a kid. It's hilarious. But hey, I can take pictures and post them on the web without paying for development now, as well as use it for a web cam. And in the end, isn't that what high pressure sales seminars are all about?