“Timeshare Freedom Group” // The MacGuffin
*This story was originally published in The MacGuffin Vol. 37, No. 2
Did some high-pressure salesperson twist your arm into buying a timeshare? Did they “forget” to mention that your fees would go up year after year after year? Did they neglect to prepare you for the possibility that Gina would take the kids and this little unit in New Buffalo, Michigan would become a prison cell you’d visit out of sheer obligation?
Is your timeshare only available in late winter when the sky and lake assume the same shade of gray? When the days fade into each other with no horizon to mark their passage? Does its nautical décor—the seahorse night light, the barnacle-crusted anchor, the life preserver dangling just out of reach—make you feel like a doomed sea captain on his way to the depths?
Do you spend that first Sunday binging pornography, trying to block out the memories? Dana frolicking in the sun-gilded waves…Jonah mauling a beach ball with his toddler arms…Gina squeezing your hand after you tucked the kids into bed, her smile resting somewhere between tired and contented… Do you get so lonely you acquiesce to the siren song of a Horny Singles in Your Area banner ad? Do you back out when it asks you for your credit card number?
Do you occasionally find something the cleaning crew missed? A stray sock? A chewed-up pacifier? A used band-aid floating in the pool? You don’t believe in ghosts, but you do believe in “energy.” Does this place pulse with a misery so unadulterated you can feel it in your organs? When you shut your eyes, can you see the other families—your co-owners—filing through, white-knuckling their weeklong stints with the same desperation?
In the night, when you do sleep, do clauses from that byzantine contract invade your dreamscapes? Saxony Properties, LLC maintains sole discretion over rental periods… additional payments for maintenance fees, taxes, and special assessments… delinquent fees will be deducted… strict no-cancellation policy… Do they jolt you awake, drenched in sweat, tangled in low thread-count bedsheets?
To stave off cabin fever, do you trudge to the Stray Dog? Do you find yourself ordering the cheese-stuffed, bacon-wrapped, deep-fried abomination you swore off forever? Do you wash that sucker down with a couple cold ones? And then a couple more? Do you watch helplessly as your index finger dials those familiar seven digits?
When Dana picks up, does your breath catch in your throat? Do her words cut like glass shards? “Daddy? Is that you?”
When the tears come, do you hang up?
In the stagnant hours of the night, when the trees cast long, skeletal shadows across your walls, do you boot up your laptop? Do you type that name into the Facebook search bar? The one you’ve heard passed through the grapevine in grave whispers? When you hit “enter,” do you grit your teeth? There, in the jaundiced glow of the moon, do you behold a photo of Gina and the kids cradled in the arms of another man? Do you covet the angelic white sand, the crisp Florida sea stretching infinitely behind them?
Do your hands begin to operate without your consent? Do they drench the area rug in rubbing alcohol? Do they flick a cheap drugstore lighter to life? Does your heartbeat pound through your skull as they guide the flame to the big wool fringe? As they let it dance there on the precipice?
When the blaze eats through the kitschy captain’s wheel pattern, does a moment of catharsis wash over you? Is it quickly overshadowed by visions of vindictive lawyers, salivating bill collectors, Jonah’s pink hand pressed against the other side of a plexiglass wall?
Does the fire extinguisher sputter weakly in your grasp? Do you heave up prayers to the god you long ago denounced? Do you squeeze the handle until your knuckles go numb?
Does a great deluge of foam, at last, come forth and smother the flames? Do you plop down onto the half-charred ottoman and let out a deep breath? Is it a sigh of relief—or just a sigh?
It’s not right and it’s not your fault. Timeshare Freedom Group has helped thousands of people get rid of their regrettable, overpriced timeshares. Call 800-954-2957 when you realize the stillness is worse than the flames.
