A time to share?

Frequently in past years, I've gotten emails and phone calls from sales people offering all manner of come-ons if I would sit down for a couple of hours and listen to a pitch about buying a time share.

I had always previously ignored them.

But last January, someone from Hilton called and made a really good offer. Two nights in a midtown NYC hotel, including parking for a ridiculous rate, as well as $200 toward a future Hilton property stay. Born and raised there, I still love NYC, and so I said yes, Mary and I would give them two hours of our time in exchange for that.

I set the date to coincide with our 29th wedding anniversary. I made plans with good friends who live in town and our son Dave who lives just outside it in Hoboken. And I picked up two tickets to see "Promises, Promises" on Broadway.

Then I did some homework and read about all the horror stories people had to share about these pitches. They were pressured. They were made to feel like garbage if they didn't go for it. Or worse, they went for it and were then quickly struck by buyer's remorse.

But they didn't have what I had as my secret weapon. They didn't have Mary, who never met a financial offer she couldn't refuse.

Our time came at 11 a.m. Saturday. A young Asian man named Leonard introduced himself as Lenny and started off with all sorts of friendly chatter about nothing that mattered -- aside from revealing that he is a Mets fan, which always matters.

We went nowhere on the pitch -- scheduled to last two hours -- for the first 20 minutes or so. I was thinking the longer I let him ramble on about nothing, the less of the pitch I'd have to hear. Mary, she later told me, was bored.

Eventually he got to the pitch, but of course no hard numbers. We heard all about the "benefits" of time share ownership, and he tried mightily to pin down our regular travel habits. Turns out we have none.

We'd let him know from the start that he had very little chance of making this sale -- and then proceeded to show him why. Finally, sales person No. 2 entered the conversation -- about an hour and 20 minutes into it. He was the first to give us numbers, which of course were ridiculously high for something we'd never really "own." But I could tell his heart wasn't in it. Lenny had apparently already given him the lowdown on us.

Finally, they brought in the closer, a guy who I think really believed he was making an offer we could not refuse -- another stay at another location, this time in Florida for seven days, and another sales pitch all for another ridiculously low price.

We somehow managed to resist, and in the end walked out with our free night certificates, a $100 gift card to pay for the parking, and our pride and pocketbooks in continued good stead.

They never had a prayer. We had a great weekend and Mary and I, marking 29 years together, had once again proven we are an unbeatable team.

Later.