Bizarre attic wonderlands of taxidermied dead things, war dioramas, and lace-up leather shorts.
Perhaps you have been unemployed for a really long time. Maybe you've run through your unemployment, or perhaps you are so silly that you quit your job instead of getting laid off, so you never had unemployment to run through in the first place. Maybe you need some ready cash, and would prefer not to get involved with payday loans.
You could sell all your stuff on Craigslist for some scratch, but then you won't have your stuff anymore. If you go to a pawn shop, on the other hand, you have the chance of getting your stuff back, just as soon as you get you a job*.
Here's how it works: The pawn shop right down the street (or right down another street, if you live somewhere nice) will give you a loan (with interest) in exchange for your stuff. If you pay it back, you get your stuff back. If you don't pay it back, they keep your stuff, and then sell it to other people with an unexplainable interest in your stuff (unexplainable because mostly your stuff is not that interesting, or nice).
Mostly your stuff is very sad -- poignant, even, like Hemingway's probably apocryphal six-word story, above (in the headline) -- but we trekked through our friendly neighborhood pawn shops in search of the saddest.
"We got a couple of Nagels! You like?”
The Wedding Ring
Actually, not! "What are the saddest things you have in here?" we asked a couple guys manning our first pawn shop of the day. "I mean, obviously, besides wedding rings."
"Wedding rings aren't sad!" they corrected us, and laughed. "People who come in here with wedding rings are the happiest customers we have! They are absolutely delighted to get rid of them!" Wait, what?
"You get out of a bad marriage, what's the most disrespectful way to get rid of that symbol? A pawn shop. You are throwing it right in their face, even if they never know how you got rid of it. It's like throwing your ring in the river, or a garbage dump, except you get some money for it at the same time." Say, that makes a lot of sense! Tell us more of your wisdom, pawn shop employees! You got any baby shoes, never worn? "Nah. But we have some knock-off Chinese Barbie dolls. Oh, and we got a couple of Nagels! You like?"
