Saved from myself

I stand beside my wife in one of the most costly rooms in Livonia. It is the showroom in the front of 14 Kt. Jewlers. We are here to get the ring I purchased her, a Christmas gift, sized. I thought I had done good, but my notes had the wrong number down for size. As it turns out, a few numbers off makes a huge difference. She talks to Victor, the jeweler and owner, who she has known for years. I look at the crazy array of sparkling things in the glass cases.

I am not going to buy anything else, enough damage has been done, but the rings and earrings and pendants are an imagination inducing variety of shapes and colors. I first notice that all of the tags are positioned such that you can't see the price. This is not really a surprise, as it lulls you into looking at something, which would be better left under the glass.

The next thing I notice causes me to have a moment of shame. It probably wouldn't mean anything to anyone but me, but me, but it is a bullet my past self dodged. In between the white display boxes of small gold and silver jewelry, are large brooches. These are about the size of a small paperweights and are completely covered in colored stone. They are in the form of tigers and frogs, faces and castles. They are expensively bejeweled artworks.

It takes me back to a place the used to exit in Plymouth, George's Gift Gallery. This was the home to a ton of little expensive and unique gifts and furnishings. It was a collection of brig fabrics, puzzle with local puzzles, dolls and charms. Growing up in Plymouth, this would be a regular place to visit, when we were downtown.

This place collided with my Dad's collection genes with what could have been a catastrophic way. I was looking for something to collect. It needed to be small, but should be unique. It couldn't be stamps or bottle caps, it needed to be rarer. George's had the perfect answer to the problem, under glass, in an attention drawing display, they had jeweled dragons and wizards and bugs. The sign told me they were brooches.

That's right, I was middle school boy planning to collect brooches. Can you imagine any quicker way to get beat up?

I don't know why, but I didn't think about these being for women. I didn't think about how this would make me even a little more of a social outcast. These even went on my Christmas list.

I don't remember my parents telling me I couldn't have them, or they were for girls. They did save me, though, instead, they showed me the cost of one of these things and explained it would be all I would get for both Christmas and my birthday. I did the youthful calculation and decided it wasn't worth it.

I look up from the tiger brooch, to where my wife and Victor are talking. I don't tell her how I almost became the boy who collected brooches.