Jewelry Separation

“Parting is all we know of heaven and all we need to know of hell.”  ~Emily Dickinson

Last night I believe that I softly cried myself to sleep. A bitter ending to an usually busy day for me as I was cleaning my apartment for most of the afternoon and evening.

The steady activity of unusual excercise probably had worn me out, but in my efforts of cleaning always leads me to a surprise of discoveries of previously misplaced or lost items. One of which was the receipt to the gold ring that I had in a pawn shop. A ring that I did very much so intend on paying back the loan and retrieving ownerships once more.

But when I looked at the date that was printed to be the “last day of grace”, my entire body sank when I realized that date was yesterday.

I quickly went online to search for the operating hours of the pawn shop and it just got worse as by the time I realized it, I only had about 45 minutes before the pawn shop would close. All I needed to do was pay the interest amount on the loan and they would re-finance it to where I would have another grace period. But it would do nothing for the principal of the loan.

So I called them. I tried to explain my situation that I had the money for the interest amount, but would not be able to get there before they were going to close. As much as they did apologize and tell me that they felt for me, they were not willing to do anything about it. At least not in the sense that they would hold off for another day until I was able to arrive there to pay for the interest amount. The grace period was over.

This was the ring that I had put in pawn as a test to see what I would get for it, before selling that other ring that I had that had too many bad memories attached to it. This ring that was lost last night, the pawn shop was willing to give a loan up to $225 for. The story I had written in a previous post.

But instead of taking out that much of a loan, I only took $60 of it. I didn’t want to take so much of a loan on it that I could not pay it back. And it turns out that I couldn’t after all.

Even when I returned to SELL the ring that I didn’t want, I thought I would receive more for it because it had a larger garnet in it and diamonds around. But surprisingly, they didn’t give that much to me for selling it.

If I had known that I was going to lose this ring though, I probably would have gone ahead and taken the $225. But I had not intended on losing it at all. Now I have.

I could mention the reasons and excuses for why I never got to the pawn shop. But writing about them here isn’t going to return the ring back to me. It is not going to change anything.

All I could do was reflect on how proud I was when I bought the ring back in 2002 or around that time. It was something that I paid for MYSELF. (With the $20 exception that I got from my sister as a birthday gift towards the purchase.) Still, I paid for it. And I thought I was a bad ass for having it. I thought I looked pretty sharp with it on.

And then my thoughts would switch over to the ugliness of the situation from the OTHER ring. I was surprised that my brain would switch thoughts like that in an instant. I began to not like my ex all over again and blame her some more for the other situation. But I did not blame her for this.

And I also started to blame the scenario of a few months ago from the scam that I fell victim to. I believe that had I not fallen for it, my finances would be a lot different than what they are now. And most likely I wouldn’t have had to step inside the pawn shop at all for any reason.

I can point fingers and assign blame all that I want. But it will not give me the ring back.

I COULD go back into the pawn shop after a while and see how much that they are selling it for and buy it back, but most likely the mark-up on it will be so crazy that I couldn’t afford it.

So I guess that this whole summer, I had one hard lesson to learn. And it stings for sure. Perhaps now I will go online and do some shopping to see whether or not I am able to find something different. Something else that I might enjoy just as much to wear and see whether or not I can afford it. If so, I just might buy me another ring from some place else.

I’ll have to keep my eyes open.

So I wave farewell to the ring that I most enjoyed having. It is only material, and it can be replaced. And so I’ll march forward to do so.

Jewelry Solution

“There comes a time when the witch must be brought down by the fires and returned to the place from where she came from, in order to save all of humanity.”

My return to the local pawn shop has brought me another step closer to making my ex-girlfriend a vanishing memory.

The monstrosity ring that I had purchased while I was in that relationship, was SOLD. The gold ring was by far, something that was ugly or gawdy. It just held too many negative memories for me.

And now, the ring finger on my right hand feels funny and awkward because there’s nothing there. But in time, that will go away. And I won’t have to be reminded of it, of her, or of anything in the past four years.

I was also able to pay the interest on the other ring that I had received a loan on. It didn’t do anything towards getting it back, it just allowed me to pay on it longer and had given me a later due date before I lost it.

Yeah, having the money is fine and everything. But considering what I paid for it and what I sold it for, was only 38% of the price I had paid when I bought it. Things could ALWAYS be worse!!

I believe there is more positives to this situation than negatives. So I made the decision to dump the bad memories and do what I can to retrieve what is good.

There’s a lot on my mind today. And I am thinking that there will be more blog post this week. At least though now, I can put this jewelry thing to rest.

Jewelry Confliction

So here’s a story that I never thought that I would ever tell, much less experience.

It is no surprise that everyone gets to the point at the end of the month (or two week pay period) where they just find themselves low on cash. I most certainly have. Getting to the first of July has been something of a head scratcher in my book.

So I went to the nearest pawn shop in my neighborhood this afternoon and took a men’s gold ring with a garnet stone to fetch a few dollars. Knowing full well that I would be back for it in a few days after I had reached the month of July.

The thing of it is that I had never had any luck with this particular piece of jewelry as far as pawn shops were concerned. I’ve been all about town in the past few years and nobody would take it. Some of them wouldn’t even look at it. Many times I’ve been told that it was a fake and the stone was fake too. But had the looked at it, actually taken the time to do so, they would have seen the stamp on the inside of the ring that marks that it is 14K gold.

But today was a different story. I was met up by one of the many pawn brokers and I just walked in and created a swath behind me as I looked at their jewelry display cases to see just what they were SELLING as far as jewelry was concerned. Mainly men’s rings.

Once the broker was able to catch up to me, I handed over the ring and my ID and asked what I could get for it. They always ask you the same question, “How much do you want for it?”. I learned the hard way that you NEVER, NEVER, NEVER answer that question directly.

If you are looking to pawn or sell something at a pawn shop and you want $50 for it, you never tell them that! You will get what you asked for, even if it means that the pawn broker was willing to give you more. But now, you’ll never know because it was you who set the price.

So I didn’t answer this time. I handed it over and let them do their thing. I was in fact a bit nervous that they were going to come right back and give me the same old story about how it was fake or whatever. But they didn’t come back right away. This broker was seriously looking into it.

When the broker came back, I heard “Two twenty-five.”

I did everything I could to keep my wits on the price that I was quoted. And because of the fact that this ring in particular has had a history of nobody wanting to touch it, I had assumed that the broker was telling me $2.25!! I seriously wanted to vomit. But then this was the first time that I had ever had a pawn broker consider a loan on it.

I snarled a bit. But then the broker said, “No sir. Two hundred and twenty-five dollars is all that I can give to you on a loan.”

I could not believe my own ears. NOT $2.25, but $225!! (Clearly, decimal placement is really important.)

I know that a lot of people would have taken it right away. Especially during these times. But the loan was up to that much. I do not know how much that they would have offered to me, had I told them that I wanted to sell it.

So then I did not take the full amount of the loan. I only took $60. It was what I felt I could easily handle while paying back the loan and getting it back before the due date and then losing it forever. All the while them making a nasty profit from it.

I kept getting asked time after time if I was sure that I did not want more. I could have taken the entire amount. And they did say that if I wanted more, that all I needed to do was pay the interest on the loan and they would re-finance it so that I could take more.

But now I have enough money to make it until July. So I’m good. And the loan is not out of my reach to pay back.

But when I got home, I started to think about it. I do not have a lot in the way of jewelry. I have a watch, I wear my U.S. Army dog tags around my neck. And I have two gold rings with garnets in them. Well, one for now.

I used to have three, but the third one was stolen. The second ring that I have, I am thinking that I could probably get a little bit more than $225 for it at that pawn shop.

It is very conflicting as I have both good and bad experiences with this ring. Well, mainly just bad memories. I’ve had wonderful experiences with the ring because a lot of people have given me compliments on it over and over again when I wear it. So I’ve been wearing it all of the time now, even though it is plagued with bad memories.

I bought the ring when I was still with my ex-girlfriend. It was really expensive and it looks great. Similar to the one in the photo included in this blog post. But at the time, I was saving some money to buy tickets to go see a concert back in 2008 in Boston. I was more than willing to pay the $375 for a pair of tickets to be on the floor right up next to the stage! But she was not a fan. A complete & total “hater” of that kind of music … if you will.

So when I had found this ring, she pushed and she pushed and she pushed for me to buy it. She knew that I did not have a lot of jewelry to call my own. She also knew that it would be something that I would wear a lot. And… she knew that if I bought it, that I would not be able to purchase the concert tickets that I had been wanting to buy. 

So I bought it. It looked great. Still does. But because of her hatred towards something that she knew that I would enjoy, her influence was heavily put upon me to buy it every time we went into that store.

Needless to say that later on I would purchase tickets for that concert out of some money that was owed to me from a settlement. But we were so far back, that the view wasn’t all that grand. I actually saved myself about $100 on the total, however everytime I think about it, it just bugs me. That’s all. Just bugs me.

So now that I have gone on and on about this and probably lost half of the readers by now, I am conflicted with whether or not to go ahead and try to sell this ring for a much higher price or keep it because my jewerly collection is small and I don’t have much.

Clearly with the money, I could put it aside and be able to have a nice start at some kind of savings so that I can do some traveling to see some people that I have been wanting to meet for a very long time. Or maybe get something that I would enjoy for me in my home. The possibilities would be endless.

For sure, I would be able to get back the ring that I’ve had for nearly ten years that I bought for myself and be free of one less thing that would remind me of a situation that was less than happy.

What would you do?!?