Learning to say "NO."

Being an adult also means learning how to recognize people that are just after your money, and learning to say "no" to them. I am sure I've mentioned this before, but I come from a very small town. I am, for lack of a better word, podunk. I am endearingly naive and I like to believe everyone's just a nice person. Okay, that was a big load of shit, I actually hate about 90% of the people I encounter daily -- I just hate confrontation and I get social anxiety when put in situations where I'm on the spot and need to say no.

Las Vegas is not a good place to be like me.

A and I quickly learned on our first day that everywhere you turned in Vegas, especially in our hotel, there are people from a resort called Tahiti Village trying to get you to come and listen to their timeshare presentation. I didn't know what a timeshare was, but judging by how quickly A would walk past them and/or ignore them, I assumed it wasn't anything good. But the name rang a bell and I remembered the commercials from back home with Alan Thicke telling me how much fun it was. And the dad from Growing Pains can't be wrong, right?

On our second day in Vegas we needed to go to get our marriage license (which a sidenote that maybe I'll come back to someday: it amazes and concerns me how easy that process was, but anyway...). Unsure where the license bureau was, we stopped by a little kiosk in the lobby appropriately labeled "Information Center" and asked. This is where all the trouble began.

The lady was nice and sweet and apparently we gave off a "itchin' to get hitched" vibe (could've been the baby belly, I suppose). And then the next thing I knew, she was asking if we wanted to get a gift certificate for $100 to the steakhouse in the hotel. Wha-wha-whaaaaaaa? Sounds fabulous! What happened in the next five minutes that ensued I'm really not sure. I think I may have blacked out -- all I remember thinking was "Prego want STEAK!" -- but next thing I know, we had forked over a $40 refundable deposit and were signed up for a "resort tour" at 4 p.m.

I say "we" like this was a mutual decision. It was not. I just was not taking A's hints that this was not what we wanted to do. This was all me. As he would continue to remind me throughout the remainder of the trip. And the three hour timeshare presentation we sat through, while repeatedly telling the salesman "No... no.... no, we're not interested... no..."

I mean, let's be honest. We're in our 20's, obviously have a little one on the way, and most likely, let's be real honest here, we're not loaded. Do you really think we want a timeshare for a resort in Las Vegas? No, no we don't. Tell Alan Thicke to stop telling me how fun it would be, because I'm not interested. I just wanted steak. That's all I wanted. And to get my $40 back.

A was thoroughly annoyed with me. Three hours later, we had a long, quiet shuttle ride back to the hotel. Although the $100 steak dinner the next night was fabulous -- after that he quit spitefully reminding me quite as much.

And so was the story of my first lesson as a wife: when your husband says "I don't know, I think that interferes with plans we made", heed his hints. It's like the code word "banana" when Prego's feeling especially feisty. But that's another grown-up lesson for another day.