Hi all,

Hope you're having a good weekend. My cousins were here last night, and the left Saturday at 3 ish. Pretty short trip. Got some good food court food, did some light shopping, etc. Good stuff.

I had some interesting times at the shopping mecca though.

My cousin really likes to shop at Tiffany's. Can you blame her? Heh. Anyway, I usually never step foot in that store unless someone else that I'm with needs to go. You may have remembered that I went last Christmas with Jarretol. I usually seem to have some good stories to tell whenever I go there. This time was no different. I must of had my "I'm a really honest guy" game face on today.

My cousin was looking at a necklaces and rings, so me, with the short attention span, started to wander around the store. I'm always so amazed whenever I go into a Tiffany's because of the magic blue box, and the oodles of money you can drop there. All the sales associates are always well groomed, and wearing pretty formal types of clothes.

So there I was, in my $10 Old Navy long sleeve shirt (sueded cotton, of course ;) and my jeans (with a hole in the wallet pocket) just poking around the store. So I decided to go take a look at the trademark Tiffany setting rings. I wanted to see the trademark 6 prongs, right? Now don't get me wrong - I'm not getting engaged or anything like that. In fact, I'm very far from anything like that. But nonetheless, I like to look and take some notes. It never hurts to be prepared, right?

So I was seriously eyeing some rings in the display case. I was totally mesmerized by the sparkly diamons, and marvelling at how the displays were nicely done and perfectly lit. So every diamond sparkled like crazy whenever you walked by.

So one of the very triendily saleslady asked if I wanted to see one up close. I didn't want make a big deal (since I wasn't serious about the purchase), so I declined her offer. But we started to chat about the setting, and how I just wanted to see it. Anyway, she ended up taking a ring out for me to look at anyway. As she handed it to me, I almost dropped it (but I caught it in time). So I'm totally scoping this ring out. Again, the ice was just gleaming and sparkling to no end.

So she says, "Let me tell you about the diamond on this ring." As she does this, she reaches for the ring's tag. And this is what I heard:

"This is a 2 carat diamond, it has something something cut, something something clarity, something something something something-rty three thousand."

So during this time, I was like, "huh, 2 carat looks like a pretty good size, I think. I could probably roll with this." :) I don't really know all the ratings and whatnot, so I just kind of zoned out when she was going through all the technical stuff. But I tuned back in (a little late though) when she got to the bottom line. I think I heard a big number, but I wasn't sure.

So I took a look at the tag myself. $43,000.00. I was pretty shocked, and I think my face showed it as well. I couldn't really concentrate on the ring anymore, and gave it back to the saleslady. I could not believe that the ring was actually $43k. That is my BMW 3 series convertible compressed into something you can put on your finger. Sheesh. Craziness.

I don't know what was different this time, but last time I think I only got to see the $5k ring. Anyway, the saleslady assured me that not all the rings were that expensive ;) Good to know.

Afterwards, when I saw my cousin, she asked if I was ok, as I looked a little pale. Her husband said that I should have just taken the ring and ran my ass off ;) I guess that's one way to become famous in time for my class reunion :)

OK, I really have to go to sleep. My battery's almost dead anyway. I'll write more later.

-Kirk