Many Thanks

Many thanks to Anne E. Hull for her "Kreativ Blogger" award given to me today in the afternoon hours. Just to prove that this is legit, I am posting a picture of the award within this very text.

I had a visit a pawn shop today. The visit was not to pawn or sell any personal belongings or anything like that, rather the visit was work related. I had these two sewing machines that were part of a claim I worked on two summers ago that, to make a long story short, were later discovered as damaged. My company paid to replace the subject machines and I got to make a drive to lovely Cobb County to hand deliver the check and collect the subject machines. You see, when we pay to replace something, we get to take possession of it and do with it what we will. We've paid you for a new one. We get the old one (if the old one hasn't been discarded, which it almost always has). Anyway, the idea is that we take the old item and sell it for salvage value and credit whatever cash we generate back to our claim file. So, every once in a while, I get charged with trying to sell some bizarre item for pennies on the dollar. I used to just list things on eBay, trying my best to write comedic descriptions (For a set of four Mercedes wheels: "4 Mercedes wheels ON THE CHEAP". For a single diamond stud earring: "Perfect for the one-eared woman").

These sewing machines were heavy though, like 30-40lbs a pop, bulky, and just generally difficult to carry around. As such, I decided to leave them in my car after I collected them and would attempt to sell them directly to a third party (so as to avoid carrying them up to the office, putting them in the supply room, waiting 14 months, and then having someone ask me why they're in the supply room, then carrying them back down to my car to try and sell). I'm not lazy, it's not that, but the reality is that I have more pressing things to do most days than to try and sell two water damaged sewing machines. So, they sat on my backseat for several weeks, although I was going to places one or twice a week attempting to sell the subject machines, with no luck.

I was motivated today following a large cup of McDonalds coffee and several glasses of sweet tea at lunch time and a very productive morning that saw my knock out all of today's work and all of tomorrow's as well.

I wound up at a lovely place in Norcross called "The Pawn Shop, Inc." I walked inside and asked one of the shop keeps if he was interested in buying some sewing machines. He doubted that he would be. I bolstered my case by explaining that the machines were water damaged, I didn't know if they'd actually been repaired, and that based on their weight, they seemed really nice (I also told him what we paid to replace them which confirmed how nice they were; very nice).

A few minutes later, I have both sewing machines sitting on the glass counter above some pistols, each machine plugged in, and me clumsily trying to figure out how they worked, to prove that they did work. Upon randomly pressing some buttons on the larger machine and watching the needle suddenly come to life and pound like a piston in a race car I proudly exclaimed "Well, I'll be damned, it does work...."

I may have been the worst "pawner" ever, which I guess is inevitable when it's someone else's money that's being dealt. I started amusing myself at the dialogue that was taking place in front of the used DVDs.

"Why are you trying to sell these things?"

"Because I'm tired of seeing them on my back seat."

"Have they been repaired?"

"I have no idea. I don't know how long they'll work either."

"How much do you think they retail for?"

"(redacted)"

"How much you want for them?"

"I don't know. $30 a piece? $60 total?"

"If you paid (redacted) for them and you're selling them for $60, something must be wrong."

"Yeah, what's wrong is that I'm tired of looking at them."

"It says here [from online research] that the bigger one should have a foot pedal. Does it have one?"

"You're asking the wrong guy. I don't see one in the box, so I guess it doesn't have one."

Finally, after some debate, they agreed to buy the subject machines for $40 total. I was happy with that. This is when the fun really started. They asked for my driver's license, which I provided. Then for my social security number. After giving it to the clerk, I smiled and said "you think these are hot?"

He replied with "Well, we report everything. So if they are, we'll know." He looked at my very seriously, almost sternly, and added "OK?"

I said "Well, if I was going to steal something and then pawn it, I'd at least take something that I knew the value of...." He found this mildly funny and at this point, I think he dropped any concern he may have had.

They printed the invoice and asked me to sign at the bottom. I wrote my signature with our company name right beside it. Then the clerk asked for my right index finger. He pressed it onto an ink pad and rolled it across the invoice near my signature. Take no chances.

The topper came next. The clerk wrote a number, it was 13, in a big red letters at the top of the invoice. He then handed the invoice to me and said "Hold this up by your face". I did as I was told, laughing at this point, while the clerk, I kid you not, took my picture holding this invoice. I said "Do you want to take another one with me holding today's newspaper in the other hand?" which really amused one of the other clerks.

All in all, I was happy. I got some money back for the company and cleaned up my backseat. I managed to have a good time in doing both of those things and now, should I ever want to buy some used power tools or mircowaves, I know exactly where to go. It's a win for everyone, really.