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It's amazing what people will do. Truly. Today, at about 11 am a fairly decent looking female with blonde hair & brown eyes came in the shop. I'm a sucker for brown eyes. Now working at a pawn shop, these are few & far between. The only attractive females that ever really come in here have been my girlfriend(s), Mark's baby momma, Stan's kool-aid, and Matt's wife(who is a total babe). Said girl brings her boyfriend in with her. The first thing they do is ask for Matt. Supposedly this girl was in an accident yesterday or two as she claims & there's bills to pay. First off, she has a diamond bracelet & a movado watch. The bracelet is about 1.75 to 2 carats in diamond weight & is white gold. Could easily be sold at a jewelry store for two to three grand. The whole time she's just saying, "It's a nice bracelet, It's a nice bracelet." She further explains that she hit a mailbox yesterday while she was looking at her cell phone & she ran into the back of someone yesterday because her brakes aren't too well off & the guy infront of her slammed on his brakes. She's a keeper! Dime a fucking dozen. For the watch & the bracelet Matt offers her $300. To which she replies, "I was expecting lyk, I dunno, maybe $500." The guy chimes in with, "Man, it's a nice bracelet. We payed a couple grand for that. It's kind of hard to swallow letting it go for that much." Ok man, get the fuck out. What do you expect? Honestly. Matt's whole selling point is we pay the most for gold & whatever else. We don't. Matt told them to check out this other pawn shop. That they would surely be in the door & then right back out. So the twenty-something-nothings start to walk out & it was apparant that Matt & the girl knew eachother the whole time. Come to find out, it was through mutual friends. Now the whole kicker of this is that the bracelet she brought in to sell was bought for her from Matt a couple months back by an ex-boyfriend of hers for $800 & we have this asshole talking about how much they payed for it. Well, it's about 2pm & they haven't been back. Fuck the Yankees & Fuck you, man.

We also have regulars here as one could imagine. A lady named Patricia came in earlier today, she has at least six loans open at all times from us, fairly certain she is a fan of benzos. As of this second there is a power washer, 40 dvds strewn throughout different loans, an angle grinder & a ring on loan for Miss Patricia. I see her at least twice a week. She usually comes in to sell off dvds. She'll literally go to wal-mart, buy the dvds & then come sell them here maybe a week later. We've gotten such gems as High School Musical 3 & What Happens in Vegas, not to exclude a plethora of Strawberry Shortcake movies. I'm pretty sure that's like a $14 loss for each dvd though.. So today, she comes into the shop with an "All-in-one printer" in a trashbag & one dvd. Crank Two. We just buy the dvd for a dollar & she's on her way saying she'll back in in a few with more goodies. Yes.

And now there's another frequent customer. I think something is wrong him though. I'm stuck between he actually has mental problems or he did a lot of acid/other pyschedlics growing up cos his brain just seems to be fried. Truly is a very nice guy. He kind of reminds me of someone who would be super into Elvis Costello & the boyscouts, which is cool, do you & do it well. He has super tight jeans pulled up to his belly button so his socks are showing with a weird, 60's esque pattern button down shirt tucked-in. Now when I say boyscouts, not the pedephile esque type deal I'm probably pompously making this dude sound like. Just really high pants with his tan socks showing, black pleather shoes, a red bandana around his neck, weird glasses that aren't glasses at all & a tan scuba diving hat. He kind of talks like the counselor that says, "mmkay" a lot on South Park & stutters a lot. He's usually in here for two hours at a time going back & forth between the 4,000 something dvds we have or the 400 cds on the wall we have. I feel like he literally goes through every single one reading the inserts. In fact, I know he does. What the fuck else do you do for two hours in a pawn shop?

Introducing...

An introduction -

My name is Mike. I'm freshly 21, currently not in any form of school, rather cynical & I play in a couple bands. Don't judge me. I work at a pawn shop in a rural, suburban setting with quite the array of people. The "shop," as we call it, was once owned by a very good friend of mine's father, Bob. Bob was a good man. An honest, hard-working man who made money his own way & he did it well. He sold the business about two years ago to a man named Matt. Matt is my boss. Matt is not Bob. In hopes to explain Matt as best as I can, I will leave it short; He is a businessman. Business man >/= asshole. He likes his money & is usually always right. awesome. I also work with a 32 year old man/dude named Mark. Good dude, funny stories, sometimes a big baby & he smokes a lot of weed. He ended up here after work for his Surveying job fell through. Mostly due to this piece of shit "recession", which is also why I still work here. There is another guy that works once in a while named Stan. Stan is 32 as well & he did HVAC shit for a while but decided to go back to school to get into radiology. Stan is also a good dude, very nice, buys pizza & gives me weed sometimes.

The job is really low-key. I really don't do shit but sit behind a computer, search the interwebs & say, "How are you today? Is there anything you're looking for?" I don't really have to put up with people's shit either, which is a plus. Now if you're familiar with pawn shops - they suck. We suck. I highly do not recommend coming to one to sell something/get a loan on anything. The interest rate we give out on loans is 17%. What the fuck, right? That's more than the interest on my car loan & I received that with absolutely no credit. It should be known right now that I hate my fucking job. I hate ripping people off. We play on people's desperation which is fucked & has thus added to my cynical nature. Do what you have to do. I've bills. Such is Life. Albeit, you CAN find good deals on some things, but mostly not. We're selling a USED PS3 for $349. You can get a brand new one for $299. We sell Xbox 360s for the same price as they are brand new. Matt's way of thinking is this - You mark the price up really high so when you lower the price people will think they're getting a deal. Example: The PS3. Take $50 off & some fucking idiot is supposed to think he's getting a steal for $300. Which sadly, I wouldn't put past anyone but it's not like anything is selling. The PS3 has been sitting here for a long, long time. Let's get one thing straight - It's not like that stupid fucking television show on the History or the A&E channel, whatever. You bring in a piece of armor or a busted arcade game we will look at you like you're fucking stupid & tell you we won't buy it. Matt makes his money off buying gold, so I'm told.

I started this blog to share my stories from working here. Where this pawn shop operates is a pretty safe place but there are some interesting fucking people here(like everywhere). Naturally, I have some stories to tell from these beautiful & wonderful people that make up this small world of ours. I hope you find entertainment from this & even if you don't - I don't care because you still read some of it which is kind of cool for me. Enjoy.