For weeks, the preschool moms have been dumping out jewelry boxes and dresser drawers for old gold jewelry and making lunch dates to go to the local gold dealer, whose store, although located in the suburbs, is beginning to take on the aura of an urban pawn shop. According to their reports, they’ve been getting some good money. One mom was talking about how she got $300 for a chain from a high school boyfriend…to which I responded, “who were you dating in high school?” (Seriously, I think the most expensive gift I ever got from a high school boyfriend was a Journey concert T-shirt).

So this morning, out of curiosity more than anything, I grabbed a couple of broken chains and three rings I no longer wear, and I made plans to visit the pawn shop after my workout. I wanted to see if these ladies were being accurate (I was applying the 2X+1 rule, like in college when guys said “we drank 2 and half cases of beer last night.” Well, by 2x+1, it means that they actually drank about a case).

After my workout, I drove to the gold exchange, where I waited in line for 40 minutes. All I can say is, wow. First of all, the desperation was absolutely palpable. I don’t know if the women, and they were all women, in line really needed the money or if they just wanted to be able to tell the $300-for-the-broken-chain-story (remember 2X+1), but these women were seriously anxious. You know how when people are nervous and waiting in a long line (think airport security), there is very little personal space allowance and nobody talks, not even on their cell phones? That’s what this was like.

The other thing was that these women were dumping out shoe boxes full of jewelry (I actually felt a little ass-like with my baggie). I’d never observed the pawning process before, so it was pretty interesting. Phase one is the magnet. Apparently, if jewelry sticks to a magnet, it’s fake. The woman four or five people in front of me was sent away with her entire cookie tin; everything was fake, and she looked like she was either going to cry or seriously holler at someone. Phase two is the weighing. Phase three is the calculating, the point at which the gold exchange person said “It’s worth…” and the pawner said yes or no (everyone said “I’ll take it). Phase four is the check writing. From what I could tell, the potential shame of phase one, the magnet test, was what was causing most of the tension. I mean, who wants to be the sad lady with a cookie tin full of fake gold? The process takes about ten minutes per shoe-box carrying customer (with my baggie, I was done in five minutes).

During the 40 minutes I was in line, a couple of non-pawners came in for other things. One guy picked up a ring and another guy was looking at coins. The coin guy was a, well let’s just say, corpulent fellow who kept saying creepy and sexist things like “I’ll just wait, I don’t want to get attacked by all of these women.” He made this statement six times. Finally, after time six, I stared obviously and pretty aggressively (for me anyway) at his large midsection and said, “Oh, I think you could withstand it.” This endeared me to the other pawners-in-waiting because they all turned to me and smiled or rolled their eyes.

In the end, all of my jewelry (all five pieces) were real gold, and while I won’t be so gauche as to say exactly how much I got, I’ll just say that the 2X+1 rule didn’t apply (although, a couple of preschool moms may have been exaggerating slightly). However, I will say that it was enough cash for me to go to the local camera shop and buy a pretty nice digital camera, including case and memory card.

And I recycled, so it was, as they say, all good.