Well, it's not like we had better plans ...

After a couple of years living like a normal consumer, I've started mystery shopping again.

It's good in that it forces me to get out of the house instead of pouting about the crappy job market. And it doesn't hurt that I get a lot of free stuff. (Two free meals yesterday. Not shabby.) I love getting to act like a spy -- sometimes I even get a fake name! The downsides are that there's a lot of paperwork and the shop fees drill down to minimum wage or less for the time involved.

All that is preface for the story I'm about to tell you, which starts with a hotel mystery shop Paul and I did on Halloween. (Free $200 hotel room! See what I mean?) We were within walking distance of a restaurant we like, but the three-quarter-mile walk is reminiscent of Paperboy on the NES. You guys remember that game? Ride a bike, dodge idiotic stuff such as tornadoes and the Grim Reaper. Except on this walk we were dodging things such as horse-drawn carriages, a huge crowd waiting to eat at Hyman's and -- the Grim Reaper of our walk -- people luring suckers into half-lit buildings with promises of free stuff for listening to a time-share presentation.

You know, Charleston has pretty much zero crime -- at least compared to Memphis -- so the time-share people are the closest we've gotten to panhandlers. Except I'm not offering my leftover hush puppies to somebody trying to sell me a condo in Rio.

Anyway, we made it to the restaurant and sat at a table near the bar. The waitress asked what we wanted to drink, so I asked what the house mixed drink was. The bartender shrugged and said he'd whip up something. Okay, now I need to make two points: One, Paul and I almost never drink, and two, this was perhaps the strongest mixed drink I've ever had at a restaurant. We ate, we paid, we left. Both of us were woozy after just one drink. Good thing we were walking.

But walking also meant we had to navigate the Paperboy route. Past the carriages -- check. Past the Hyman's crowd -- check. Past the time-share dudes -- well, crap. We were approached by a guy who (a.) swore he wasn't selling time-shares, (b.) wasn't a panhandler, and (c.) didn't want my leftover hush puppies. So in our not-quite-lucid state, we agreed to come back the next day for a sales presentation about a wholesale travel company. Our rewards: a $25 gift certificate to Hyman's, a three-night hotel stay and a $200 gas voucher. And all we had to do was give him $20 so we didn't bail on the presentation.

So that's how we found ourselves among five couples watching PowerPoint slides about how we could get in on the wholesale travel market for the low, low price of $7,500. And I'm not accidentally adding an extra zero to that. We were most definitely the least wealthy couple in the room: a new professor and an editor who proofreads this-and-that while she looks for a 9-to-5. After the presentation was over, a sales associate came to our table. She knew we weren't interested, probably because we'd spent the last hour writing notes to each other (we're third graders at heart). "You're not going to buy this, are you?" she asked sourly. "Nope," we said in unison. And in less than three minutes, we had our free gifts and were out the door.

We walked to Hyman's and bought a nice, $32 lunch. Then we looked at the vouchers for the hotel stay and gas card. We'd pretty much figured out beforehand that they weren't going to actually give us a free hotel stay and gas card ... and we were right. From the hotel voucher:

This certificate is valid for a reservation form offering 2 adults 21 years of age and older 4 days, 3 nights of hotel accommodations in the city of their choice of available cities. The cost to redeem this certificate to receive the reservation registration activation form is just a one-time $40.00 redemption fee. Your only cost upon confirmation is just a tax deposit of $75 per couple. If the taxes are less than the $75, the difference will be refunded upon confirmation of reservations.

And on and on it goes -- caveats, hidden fees and all. The process to get the gas voucher is even more convoluted. Really. You can read it for yourself here. To answer your question, no, we didn't send off for a reservation registration activation form.

But, you know, I can't complain. We did get a free hotel stay, just not from the "we swear we're not time-share people" people. And we got to eat at Hyman's. Oh, and we got our $20 back.

Maybe there is such a thing as a free lunch. Or a mostly free lunch. And I didn't even have to fill out paperwork for this one.