Micro Monday - December 16, 2024
Pawn Shop
When I was about eight years old, I remember riding to the store with my dad and talking about Christmas presents for my younger brother, who would’ve been two or three at the time. I knew Santa wasn’t real at this point, but it seemed like everyone else was still invested in the premise, so I talked about it in those terms. “Maybe Santa will get Kenny a Hot Wheels car,” etc. “If he isn’t too little,” I added, responsibly.
My dad turned down the radio. “I should probably tell you something.”
“Santa isn’t real?” I asked.
He looked relieved, if a little surprised. “You already knew?”
Three years before this conversation, when my mom got pregnant with my little brother, they tried to explain, as carefully as they could, where babies came from. But I was a voracious reader, and I’d flipped through my dad’s EMT textbooks (mostly to look at fractured bones), so I already knew pretty much everything I needed to know about the process. I even flipped to the page with the diagram of the baby in the mother’s belly to show them what my unborn brother probably looked like.
This was the second awkward conversation I’d saved them. “Yeah, I knew.”
I understand there’s a whole ethical debate about whether or not you should tell your kids that Santa is/isn’t real in the first place, but the Loss Of Innocence has to happen at some point, and Santa is a pretty easy Band-Aid to rip off.
Easier than the other conversation I had with my dad, a few years later, about a different Christmas present.
This would’ve been in the late 90s. I can’t remember if it was during the height of the Beanie Baby craze, or the Pokémon craze, or the Furby craze. The 90s were kind of a blur of toy fads. I suggested a [Fill In The Blank] for one of my younger cousins, and my dad turned down the radio.
“We probably can’t get him one of those.”
“Why not?”
“Because his mom will sell it for drug money.”
Woah.
Forget Santa. The idea that there were parents out there who would sell their kids’ presents for a little extra cash was a much more shocking revelation.
Fortunately, the kids I shop for now have very responsible parents. I send a gift, I get a thank-you text with a little picture of the kid unwrapping it. It’s a nice system, and I never have to think about the street value of any specific toy. But there are plenty of adults still playing that game, trying to make sure that one of the kids in their orbit feels loved at Christmas time when their primary caregiver is running on a completely different set of wiring.
This week’s microfiction goes out to them.
Pawn Shop
Bill set the toy rabbit on the counter. “How much for this?”
The shop owner - Brenda - checked it for stains, worn seams, whatever else you checked on a stuffed rabbit. Behind her, two basketball teams ran across a row of flat screens.
“I can do eight bucks.”
“How much for twenty of them?” Bill asked.
“I don’t need twenty rabbits.”
“How many do you need?”
Brenda raised an eyebrow. “You rob a toy store or something?”
“I bought one for my nephew,” Bill explained. “And my sister sells stuff here when she needs cash.”
Brenda looked at him like he was crazy. Maybe he was. “I can do fifty bucks for ten of them. That should get me through to next Christmas.”
Bill set the bag of toys on the counter. “Then I guess I’ll see you next Christmas.”
