Pawn Spawn

I have been making monthly transactions at local gold and coin pawn shops. Over the decades, my grandma and grandaunts have given me an assortment of jewelry, rings and earrings sets mostly, emeralds, jades, pearls and diamonds. All gold. All garish :)

They've sat in my jewelry boxes until I needed funds fast, and then I easily let them go. It's the aftertaste that leaves me a touch bitter.

My grandaunt was married to a pawnbroker in the Philippines and it was through the family business that my grandmother and grandaunties came to possess an extensive collection. The thing is, my grandaunts live very modestly -- not exactly the word I would use, but it is a start. They are 3 sisters including my grandma and they are very, very proud senior matriarchs. Their husbands (my grandfather is the only one still living and healthfully kicking ass, may I add) squallored any profits their businesses sustained while they were alive, leaving my grandaunts with little to live by as widows. It was their daughters, my aunties, who take care of them in their senior years.

And when they can, my grandaunts send us jewelry. Some of these sets are appraised at over $10,000. I have pawned my sets for anywhere between $150 to $400. And I do not pawn for loan. I let them go.

I cannot afford to end up like my grandaunties, love them dearly as I do. I can now afford another month of SCE. Having my home powered allows me to myspace :) in my lingerie, among other things that fills me with gratitude.

Pawn Spawn.

My mother personally doesn't have any sets from her aunties' collections. She refuses them citing that they were gains from the misery of others. She also sees what I see, that they make her family miserable.

The thing about cheating others of their treasures at a time when they are in dire straits is that the buyers get an intense high from the great deal they just made, there is no high equivalent to the initial buy that would make selling the jewels worthwhile for them, other than giving them away as gifts to their loved ones.

Even though they live in relative squalor in the Philippines, my grandaunts will not sell nor allow their daughters to sell their jewelry so that they may improve their standards of living. They cannot bear to see all the implied profit that they made off of the sellers decades ago decrease because now they are "on the otherside of the counter." As long as they can look at tens of thousands of dollars in gemstones in their jewelry boxes (as rhumatoid arthritis has made it impossible to wear rings) they live richly. My aunts work their hearts out.

My mother says very little. I don't tell her anymore when I sell off a set. She would catch herself questioning why I would sell it for so much less than what they were worth and then purse her lips with acceptance, "At least you can use the money more than those big rings."

Pawn Spawn.