Today’s been a fun day.  After breakfast this morning, we left (well, when we left it was closer to lunch, but it was after breakfast after all) for the San Diego Temple.  We ate sandwiches on the Temple grounds, took some pictures, and the kids “played” with the various Nativity statues and animals on the Temple grounds.  One of the most exciting things, for us, is that we discovered a Visitor Center is planned – yay!  In my estimation, it’s something that’s been missing from this Temple for some time, given its proximity to the I-5 freeway, etc.

After there we went across the street to a Jamba Juice – the same one Mrs. Smith and I visited immediately after we were married.  When we finished pictures on the Temple grounds, following our marriage, we left immediately for our honeymoon (we did the reception when we returned a couple weeks later), we were hungry.  So we went across the street to Jamba Juice – Mrs. Smith still in her wedding dress and I still in my tuxedo.  Like the lovestruck kids we were, we’d not brought more than $5 cash – enough for one smoothie.  Fortunately, the employee gave us the ‘Just Married’ special and provided a buy-one-get-one-free offer – wahoo!  We waited for our smoothies, danced to whatever music was playing on their speakers, and delighted in our status as husband and wife.  😀

So, from there we went to the Birch Aquarium which is nice, but which unfortunately doesn’t compare to the Aquarium at Monterray Bay where Mrs. Smith and I vacationed a few years back (also with our WorldMark, The Club, timeshare resort).  From there we went to Mount Solldad, a federal war memorial, where I proposed to Mrs. Smith nearly six years ago now.  And then we stopped (where I am currently writing this, in fact), at my brother’s house.

We had just arrived, and I received the tour, when the doorbell rang — a Kirby vacuum salesman.  He offered to ‘quickly’ shampoo the carpet to provide a demonstration of its amazing abilities (he hasn’t gotten to it yet, but I’m sure that soon he’ll reveal it also makes Julian fries, doubles as a mini-Cooper, and solves so-called global warming).  Well, ~90 minutes later he’s still sitting downstairs doing the demonstration and started into the ‘pushy’ sales tactics we all know and love so much from in-home salesmen when my brother and his wife have rebuffed his sales efforts.  Oooh, overhearing the conversation, it just went into the emotional manipulative mode “Well, I obviously haven’t done a good job of convincing you about this vacuum if you’re not going to buy it…”  Nice.  To my sister-in-law’s credit, she and her husband have remained civil.  All the while dinner is now, for sure, quite cold on the stovetop.  Were it I, I’d likely have already agreed to it, signed the papers, kicked the guy out the door, and then relied on the 72hr right of recission (i.e. “cool down”) that’s federally guaranteed for in-home purchased products because of pushy salesmenship.

I’m sure anyone over 18yrs of age has experienced the salesman that’s quite good at what they do but which inevitably falls into what I categorize as distasteful, lengthy sales attempts.  Personally, I’d be much more likely to purchase something if they came in, skipped the presentation, told me the bottom line, and then left my family alone.  We’re now going on ~120min.  Take a hint, please – how many ways does someone need to say no?  Clearly many more times than once.  🙁