III

"Meet the Beavers."

In walks Virginia. The trashiest of the trash & the arch nemesis of proper tooth care. I can hear her chomping a mile away. She's about 6'0, 230lbs. about six teeth to her name, all sticking outward & fucked, always noming on gum. She loans us a 10k white gold ring that weighs next to nothing & has a nice, little opal stone at the apex of the ring. She has a little companion named Pedro that always pawns his toolbox. It's just a toolbox, nothing fancy. Just a red tool box with tools in it for $10. Pedro stands about 5'1, pushing 150lbs soaking wet & he smells, he smells dreadful. The kind of smells that can only meet when one pisses himself & basks in the glory for days without a shower so you have all the other matter that gets built up on one's body. It's like the smell of Silver & Copper after they've aged for a while. Very rich in smell. And quite bitter..

Virginia & Pedro walk in one day as he has come to pick up his tools & her, her ring but they're also carrying a stereo. A stereo that we had sold to them for $40. This thing wasn't worth $40 & I(we) knew this. But alas, the glory of the pawn shop. Ms. Virginia is looking to sell the stereo back for the exact amount that she bought it for. She genuinely believes that she will get $40 for this stereo when it was over priced to begin with. These are the kind of people that will come in to pay the interest on their current loan, i.e. The ring, give her $10, she pays $2 interest every month just so we can hold it another month & then buys something else in here like a stereo that she, more than likely, doesn't need whatsoever. What the fuck. Go to the dentist. I don't know what some people are thinking. You may be missing a tooth or two but you're not missing your skull. There's a fucking brain in there some where. So as it goes, we tell her we will not even buy it & she doesn't understand.. She storms out back into her 1994 Ford Probe, complete with exhaust & spoiler. Meanwhile, we have Pedro, getting his tools as calm as can be. Poor guy. Not only does he smell bad, I bet she beats him. I wasn't here for this but one time they got caught up in an argument & he stuck up for himself, telling her in a Speedy Gonzalez-esque voice, "shut the fuck up, bitch." Awesome. Wish I could've been here for that.

The Beauty of a pawn shop is this - Anyone can make money off of opening a pawn shop. You see you don't really hear about pawn shops going out of business because as much as one would like to think that we're helping you, we are not. We're stealing from you. We're fucking you & we're fucking you hard, anally. It's just you're too numb or desperate to think about all the other options you have.. You won't believe how often people come in here trying to sell something to us for $X, when they could be making double the amount of $X off of craigs list or ebay. It's mind numbing. I plead of you, don't go to a pawn shop. If you're reading this, chances are you're doing well and/or your parents are doing well to have you somewhere where you can go on the world wide webs but don't go to a pawn shop. The weed, the abortion, the crack... With the amount you pay back in interest, you probably could've gotten two rocks or an eighth or maybe a dozen coat hangers. Kidding. But I do get to go to court for the first time cos some asshole decided to sell us a camera for $5 that was stolen. Now you're fucking my day, man.