HOW THE SCAM SHOULD WORK.

              You’re in mid-midlife noncrisis, needing nothing, time and money to waste. I come up in my cheerful hurried anxious way. You know my type. I make myself a type you know: Ex-high-school-hero, harum-scarum college quarterback, his own worst enemy, adored by his childhood sweetheart, teammates and every passing dog in the street – and such nice manners. You take my piece of paper, not because you want a pen. You need to talk to me, you need my simple-minded scam. I’m Leave-It-To-Beaver-All-Grown-Up, the lovable failure of your dreams.

              You walk inside. You see the Vette, the neon blue. He’s working hard at sheaves of paper. He stops when he sees you, which takes a minute, gives you a free pen and goes back to work. The place is empty, but strewn with the messy detritus of important business. Waste baskets, slightly sloppy, almost full. He designs them each morning. He accidentally notices the paper he put on the floor for you to see when you walk in. He apologizes for the mess, puts it carefully in the wastebasket. You have to tell him he forgot your form for the Corvette. He excuses himself. America is wonderful, but America is busy. His homeland had time for hospitality and friendness. Is that the word, friendness? You tell him the right word. Maybe he writes it down, always he says it twice. An important word. He thanks you, you fill out the form. You glance at a blueprint. He should get back to work.

              With some of you, this is his skill, he does get back to work. He can’t waste time on yoyos. A yoyo is too dumb to be a Mark. You need the ability to think for yourself in order to be misled. Smart marks, always easiest to con, he shows the blueprints. He explains this new concept of time-share, which is, suppose you don’t want to vacation the same time every year? You are busy, or maybe you want to visit Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Granada, anyplace America won their war for them, maybe Paris that every body American loves? Even if you hate their Not-So-Freedom Fries? This is time-buy, with pre-completely-guaranteed company-arranged rentals, part of the rent pays your mortgage, you get the rest. His long spiel jibbers into nonsense. “You are your own and everybody’s landlord, the less you vacation the more you make, the more vacation you can afford. This is America, where hard work makes you rich, and smart work makes you richer!”

18

  

Copyright 2008 Disclaimer