I haven't been to a pawn shop in probably 15 years. I know I've been to one before, but can't remember if I sold something or bought. It would have been in college, definitely. And well before eBay, of course.
Anyway, today I stumbled across a pawn shop in Panama City and decided to take a look, as there are several things I could use, though it would be a pain to transport them to the boat in San Diego:
- Complete SCUBA gear; ladies' size... 4-6ish? Just in case?
- 2nd / 3rd / 4th SCUBA tanks (steel, 2500 PSI)
- SCUBA compressor
- 2nd set of woods/wedges & a putter to go with my 2nd set of irons here in PC
- more tools; you can always use more tools
- boat spares / or a big transformer and/or inverter
I found a few of those things, but didn't buy any - this pawn shop was totally overpriced ($499 for a driver that was probably $550 brand new). They had a nice big brand-new Rule bilge pump which would have been great had it not been about the same price I'd pay at West Marine. I did manage to pick up 6 DVDs that were "on sale" for $3 each (regularly $4.95, I think). I got some good stuff ("Apocalypse Now" Classified Edition or something like that, "Vanilla Sky", "The Bourne Identity", "Babel", "Casino Royale" and "Once Upon a Time in Mexico"). I've seen all but "Babel" and "...Mexico", but didn't own them. And for the price of a rental!? The only thing I was bummed about was that I couldn't find a "Zoolander." I need to own that.But the whole things makes me feel sort of dirty. Why? Well, for one, the disk cases were sort of gross. But more to the point, I felt almost like these were "blood disks." Were they stolen? What caused someone to want to sell their DVD collection for $1.50 apiece? (I asked how much they paid). And also overheard a worker in the shop on the phone calling someone who owed the shop money, and what I gathered is that is was $10.-----------This place is in desparate need of better food. True, I haven't really tried that many places, and I've never eaten here in a nice place at night, but it seems that everywhere I've had food in Panama City the most prominent thing on the menu is grease. For breakfast, it's all about eggs and grits and pork and waffles and gravy. If you drive down the main Business Route highway through town, you'd be amazed at the number of Waffle Houses and Waffle Shoppes and Omelet [sic] Shoppes and Omelet [sic] Houses (and more breakfast joints with less structured names). And all of them offer "home cookin' like mama's" or some variation. And mama is the mama who wants you to survive a nuclear winter on your stored reserves of fat. The place I went into this morning actually offered a side of gravy. Just gravy. For what? Why does anyone need sausage gravy on anything but biscuits?For lunch and dinner, it's all about fryin'. Fried chicken, shrimp, rings, fries, fish & chips, ... you name it. Go ahead, try to do something right for your body and ask for a side of veggies instead of the fries. Your broccoli will come slathered in Velveeta.Actuallly, I'm not really sure this place is just in need of better food; maybe it's also in need of more people who want better food. Yes, this is in fact a very broad generalization, and is probably offensive to anyone who lives here. Worse yet, it's an offensive generalization based on a very limited set of experiences. So you'll never see my real name in this blog. :)TT
