V.

A lady came in this morning trying to sell off some gold. Early 90's hair that's gone to the fritz, hanging on to it's last fried strand, tight jeans with reebok sneakers & a white Virginia Beach shirt with gawdy pinky letters. I wish I could've taken a picture of what she had. Basically it was a ring, that was once whole, but now in four pieces like some sort of puzzle. Lady proudly had her appraisal in hand saying that this once great ring was worth $2,200. I start to weigh out everything & examine the piece(s) as she rambles on about how it was & the potential it still has. The diamonds suck & if this was worth $2,200 at any given point she was either ripped off or whoever did the appraisal is a liar. It's bittersweet when people come in here looking for a certain amount of money because when you tell them how much we can buy it for, it looks like a piece of them dies. Their eyes get that hollow look. Like the thing they prided themselves in isn't worth a good god damn.. which is usually the case.

To paint you a clear picture - I was examining the jewelry at the front desk and as I've stated before, there is a camera in here for every angle you can find yourself in. Matt see's the jewelry on the counter on his 43" flat screen television in the back & comes out to do his evaluation. I really do not understand why I still have a job. I don't do shit because I believe these two think I am incapable of shit & will usually take over whatever function I am doing, which is ok because I'm still getting paid. The evaluation process usually takes about ten minutes. And this ten minutes is usually filled with silence with us on one end of the counter & them, the customer, on the other watching our every move. This wasn't the case with this lady. She had, I'm assuming, her boyfriend or husband with her and so it goes, they get into the great debate of buying things used, like jewelry, from a pawn shop. She asks her accomplice if he would happily accept something from a pawn shop to which he quickly replies, "yes." She immediately gets a confused look on her face to compliment her square head holding her self righteous thoughts. He knew he fucked up. "WHY?! you're buying someone else's misfortune & sorrow. I could never do that." Ok. I get it. People come into a pawn shop, see all the jewelry, and immediately get to thinking.. "This engagement ring was bought for some broad who cheated on their husband while he was deployed" or "some poor man's wife divorced him because he couldn't tend to her needs & wants or his dick wasn't big enough." A.K.A. - other people's sorrows & misfortunes. Ya know, first world problems... Now my point in this whole paragraph is this dumb bitch walks in here with a fucking diamond ring which was, nine times out of ten, probably mined from Africa and wants to bitch about where that ring or that necklace came from.. It just bothers me. And I don't mean to come off as pretentious and/or pompous but this is just ignorant. Which is worse? Some man losing his wife and a marriage that was probably rushed into anyway or some eight year old, starving child losing his life for the good find he stumbled upon earlier in the day. Whichever way you look at it, wherever it's coming from & unless you make everything you wear; don't come into a pawn shop talking about where things come from because chances are you don't know where what you have comes from. It could've been bought new or it could've came from the nastiest, smelliest and drunkest bastard walking the face of the earth. Maybe Some 10 year old made your shoes or shirt to compliment the 100 they already were taking on for the day for a weekly pay of $1 USD. Ignorance is not bliss, it is ignorance & this lady was ignorant.

Matt chimes in. "We could do $150 on this." She's taken back and exclaims in a baffled expression, "One-hundred and fifty dollars?!" "Are you even taking account for the diamonds?" She promptly scuffles out of the store probably bitching to that poor man that whole ride home. Such is life.

I can't wait to leave.