It’s a good thing it got here when it did. People – namely me – were starting to get grumpy.
Of course, the season brought out all the critters. Raccoons number two and three were trapped and transported a week or so ago. There was fighting over rights to the abandoned Raccoon Resort, so I evicted them both.
With spring comes renewed hope. I am cautiously, carefully, warily hopeful….I have a real interview with a real HR department for a real job. After being demoted before I was even hired by the last company I wanted (so desperately) to work for, I’m just a wee bit leery, but this one looks like the real deal.
To paraphrase a quote from my favorite movie….
“It will all turn out well….how?...I don’t know. It’s a mystery.”
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Thursday, March 4, 2010
Worse
About the time you think you’ve hit bottom, you find out you haven’t.
It started with an article in the local paper about a guy who will buy coins. The article says ‘the coin market is hot.’ My parents half-heartedly used to collect, and I know I’ll never be interested. Maybe there’s hope, something here I don’t know I have.
I scoop it all up and head to the storefront where he said he’d be until noon.
The building is new and clean. The walls are covered in paintings for sale, and the cases full of jewelry. He comes out from the back. Tall, serious, no smiling, no nonsense. I introduce myself, but I sense that he doesn’t want to get to know me and he certainly doesn’t want to hear my story. I have to think that over the course of this career of his, he’s had to harden, wall off any emotions he might feel, all the hardship cases he’s seen…..
He quickly dispenses with the coins that I thought might’ve been worth something. $5 and change. The box of old jewelry turns out to be only costume. I brought my grandfather’s old Masonic ring. I get $50 for that; he tells me mostly because of what the gold is worth. An old gold wedding band brings $50 as well.
The Ebel watch is the saddest. I’ve had it for a long time, a gift from a long ago boyfriend. I liked that watch. He looks, goes back to talk to someone, comes back out. He says $70. I know I can’t afford to put a battery in it, so I’ll never be able to wear it. I hesitate, then say OK. The same watch you’d have to spend $2,000 to buy new. I hold off crying until I turn to leave.
I walk out with $182, feeling like I just sold part of my soul.
It started with an article in the local paper about a guy who will buy coins. The article says ‘the coin market is hot.’ My parents half-heartedly used to collect, and I know I’ll never be interested. Maybe there’s hope, something here I don’t know I have.
I scoop it all up and head to the storefront where he said he’d be until noon.
The building is new and clean. The walls are covered in paintings for sale, and the cases full of jewelry. He comes out from the back. Tall, serious, no smiling, no nonsense. I introduce myself, but I sense that he doesn’t want to get to know me and he certainly doesn’t want to hear my story. I have to think that over the course of this career of his, he’s had to harden, wall off any emotions he might feel, all the hardship cases he’s seen…..
He quickly dispenses with the coins that I thought might’ve been worth something. $5 and change. The box of old jewelry turns out to be only costume. I brought my grandfather’s old Masonic ring. I get $50 for that; he tells me mostly because of what the gold is worth. An old gold wedding band brings $50 as well.
The Ebel watch is the saddest. I’ve had it for a long time, a gift from a long ago boyfriend. I liked that watch. He looks, goes back to talk to someone, comes back out. He says $70. I know I can’t afford to put a battery in it, so I’ll never be able to wear it. I hesitate, then say OK. The same watch you’d have to spend $2,000 to buy new. I hold off crying until I turn to leave.
I walk out with $182, feeling like I just sold part of my soul.
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