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.