Howdy folks,
Hope all is well. Spring is here and day time is longer. I
really love that about this time of year, not too happy with my allergies but
whatcha’ gonna do. Spring is a sign of birth, growth, hope, life and oh so many
good things. Seeds that have been planted
are now showing a hint of manifestation. What you thought might have died
during the cold and mostly dark days are now playing “peep a boo” with you,
maybe to your surprise. There are so many lessons to be learned when you think
of spring time...
I had my daughter in the spring. May 1 was my daughter, Heather’s 21st
birthday. She mentioned on April 30 that it was her last day of being a
“child”. I told her, “girl please, you were born a woman”. Can you imagine, she
was 10 lbs. 9oz. and 21 ½ inches long.
Yes you read it right, let me spell it out. HEATHER WAS TEN POUNDS, NINE OUNCES!!!! And you wonder why I didn’t have any more children? The doctor told me the next child would be bigger! WHAT NEXT CHILD??? IN WHO’S BODY?? Folks, there was no C-section involved here, this was O NATURALE!!! Let me type “SUPERWOMAN” right here. (Alicia Keys you better sing it) I told Emm this must definitely be his side of the family because we (my side of the family) don’t do stuff like this”. (laughing)
Heather has always carried herself in such a mature way. I
would always tell her “old people make old babies”. I was 32 and Emm was 36
years old when she was born. This year for her birthday, I took her to a great
restaurant on 51st and Broadway called Capital Grill. Everything
about it was great, the food, the ambiance and the COST! It was worth it
though, 21 is a big deal. As we waited for our appetizers, I had her unscramble
an envelope of letters that spelled out her birthday present. Folks, she was
floored. It spelled METROPOLITAN OPERA! Yes I got her and I tickets to see
“Dialogue de Carmelites”.
If your first love is football, how excited would you
be to get tickets to The Super bowl, or if your thing is basketball and you got
tickets to the NBA championship games? Well she’s a classical vocalist need I
say more?
I pride myself in thinking of memorable gifts for her
birthday. I remember when she was 11 years old and my husband and I picked her
up from school in the middle of the day and took her to Disney Land for a
week. We broke it to her at Kennedy
Airport what the surprise was; her response to all of this came in a whisper.
Everything another child might do like scream, jump up and down, you know all
those expressions that would get the attention of others around, Heather did
NOT do. She quietly expressed her shock and disbelief but she was very, very
happy. All in all her reaction was priceless and too funny! We stayed at the
Westgate Resorts; we got an excellent rate for a 5 day stay at an absolutely
beautiful timeshare resort.
So let me tell you about that journey. When you take
advantage of a promotional stay at a timeshare, you must schedule an
appointment to hear their presentation so that you may perhaps buy a timeshare
unit. They are banking on you buying a unit, they will accept nothing less.
That’s the point of these promotional, well discounted vacation getaways. Emm and I had a PLAN though. We would go and
listen but we will stick to our PLAN of not buying a timeshare right now, the
bottom line was we were in no position to buy right now. We knew how pushy
these reps could be but we had a PLAN. Have you noticed how I put the word PLAN
in caps? Yes folks we had a PLAN. Emm
would be the one to take this rep on if they got belligerent because they can.
I would just remain quiet and let my man handle this. We knew how this worked because we went on a
one trip to Pennsylvania when timeshares were first introduced and I mean it
was brutal. The process included much aggressive behavior and rudeness from
these reps and they had the nerve to play the tag team game. Really… well THE BARNES tag team came out in
full blast. I was so shocked; I mean we
literally got up out of there. They were too persistent, I mean every time we’d
say, “no thank you”, they’d come back with something. Ultimately we won; we
were both on the same page. In the words
of one of the character’s on IN LIVN’ COLOR…“DON’T NOBODY MESS WITH MS
JENKINS”. In other words DON’T NOBODY
MESS WITH THE BARNES AND WIN (hahaha). The way I reenacted everything all the
way home would have been torture for most of you but Emm just chilled and listened to my song and
dance or should I say ranting and raving! After a while I’m sure he tuned me
out and I didn’t care though, as long as he just look like he was listening, it
was all good. But back to the point of
the story, because of this experience we had already prepared and braced
ourselves for the meeting. Don’t get me wrong there is nothing wrong with
timeshares; we were just not financially ready for that at that time or when we
went to Florida. Our meeting was scheduled a few days after being there. How
strategic on their part, let us really enjoy the place first and then reel us
in. That didn’t matter though we knew we’d have a great time there, it came
highly recommended and we were indeed impressed. But yet and still we had a
PLAN!!!
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We went to our appointment early that morning and we
reminded each other to stick to the PLAN.
We will tolerate them for this 90 minute presentation and bow out
gracefully. We had a wonderful, very
polite young man, not aggressive or abrasive at all. He took us around the
grounds and showed us different units of possible choices. I must say it was quite impressive, but no
matter what, we had a PLAN. So by the
end of all of this he asked, “So what do you want to do?” Now remember y’all we
had a PLAN. In my head, I said, “poor,
poor guy you are now going to get this bad news after all the time you spent
with us”. I felt sorry for him but that’s life!
Well the time had come, I thought again “baby go easy on him” anyone
that knew Emm, knew that when it came to business he was DIRECT, STRAIGHT TO
THE POINT, DONE!!! I think all those years at IBM taught him that. Well, Mr.
Barnes, my man, my strong minded man, my man that exudes confidence, my man
that I knew would stick to the PLAN, my boo said, “I THINK I WOULD LIKE TO BUY
A UNIT”.
Okay, folks this is the conversation I had in my head…
HUH?? SAY WHAT??? I MUST GET THAT WAX BUILD UP OUT OF MY
EARS… DID HE JUST SAY I WOULD LIKE TO BUY ONE?? DID YOU FORGET THE PLAN?? YOU
KNOW…THE PLAN…. THE PLAN, PLAN!!!! YOU’RE KIDDIN ME, RIGHT??? WHY IS MR REP GRINNING?? OH YEAH THE
COMMISSION!!! AWWW LOOK AT HEATHER SHE IS SO EXCITED, SHE THINKS WE WILL BE
COMING HERE OR ONE OF THEIR MANY, MANY OTHER RESORTS EVERY YEAR, AWWWW!!!!! I
DON’T CARE….EMM THE PLAN, WE HAD A PLAN…….
‘til next time….
