Yesterday, I wasted two hours of my life by allowing shady marketers to entice me to get a memorial plan. Yes, a memorial plan. Now, there’s nothing wrong in getting one – I think everyone should at least prepare for the inevitable. It is the way they attempt to entice me that was annoying.

The story actually happened a month ago. Someone called at the office, claiming that she works for a certain hotel chain, that I won a free gift certificate to stay in one of their hotels. Sounds good, no? All I had to do was to claim it at their office. Now, I was lazy back then, so I made a lot of excuses. My final salvo was to tell the lady to call me up again by December 26. December 26 came and went, and no phone calls. Yes, finally in the clear.

Or so I thought. I got a call last Thursday. It was the same lady, and so I agreed to drop by yesterday. There were no strings attached, nothing to pay, the lady assured me. All they ask from me was to spare them 90 minutes for some audio-video presentation. Wow, was it that long?

So I went there, filled up a form, and waited. A few minutes later, a guy introduced himself, and we went to this table. There were several other tables, most of them with people. The guy started some small talk, like what a good salesman would do. With the talks going nowhere, with the guy bombarding me with questions whether I had questions, he then introduced their companies, and then he went on to the memorial plan. He kept on giving corny and semi-offensive jokes about death (like if you refuse this offer, what if you die when you get out of their office). I think you get the picture.

It was like Family First.

No, they got nothing from me; I got to say no. Please remind me to say no when another telemarketer calls me.

Oh, they did allow me to pick from a fish bowl a destination for the free GC. Well, it was for a far place, and the GC will prolly be left unused. One, you have to make a reservation within 14 days from the date the GC was issued. I wish I could make a decision within that time frame. Second, it was a far location, so it really needs a lot of planning if I want to go. Fourteen days are not enough. Oh well.