Crazian jewelry

I take my wife's watch to be repaired at a local jewelry shop. It's one of those small strip mall boutiques you find sandwiched in between a grocery store and a Subway. A man I'm guessing is one of the owners stands outside smoking a cigarette as I walk in with my soon-to-be toddler in tow.

"It's open," he says in an undistinguishable accent and motions for me to go on in which I do.

Immediately upon opening the door I can smell the incense burning in this place. It smells like a cross between chocolate chip cookies and Asian mysticism. To add to the ambiance they also have several statues of Eastern gods I don't quite recognize but seem to recall seeing in a few restaurants around town where they serve raw fish and seaweed. I want to say they were of Shiva but I think Shiva has multiple arms (i.e. more than two) and I'm guessing the proprietors aren't Hindu.

I mean, I'm not going to ask them about their spiritual path to enlightenment or anything, but they just don't . . . you know . . . look the part.

Anyway, the woman behind the counter is most polite and takes great pleasure in trying to make my daughter smile which she never seems to like to do on command. When the cigarette smoking man comes back in to look at the watch, the woman tries to engage me in conversation.

"This weather crazy," she says.

"What's crazy? Oh yes, the weather did you say? Yes, the weather's crazy."

"Warm weather in the south. Tornado in the north. It crazy," she goes on to say.

"Yes," I respond awkwardly, "Crazy."

"Weather crazy. Everything crazy. We not know when war will end," she says.

"No, we don't," I offer as I look at the man behind the window hoping he'll hurry up and repair the watch so I can get out of here.

"Just can pray to God," she says.

"Right," I say, only it comes out more like a contemptuous prolonged R-I-I-I-I-I-G-H-T.

She goes on to talk about surviving as a small business owner and how sometimes it seems like they work to pay only the government and the landlord. She tries to make small talk about the bond between fathers and daughters and mothers and sons.

All the while I'm holding Meryl trying to get her to see herself in the mirror and smile. There is a wire going up the wall and into a drilled hole next to the mirror. I'm guessing she and I are on a security camera. that's hidden behind the mirror. I'm no jewelry connoisseur but none of this stuff really looks like anything anyone would steal, and a shop like this can't have too much cash in the drawer.

Oh well.

The man returns the watch though saying the problem had just been the battery and that it was a nice quality watch that shouldn't give me any problems. I settle the bill which is all of ten dollars and walkd out. Oddly enough there is another man standing outside smoking now and I wonderd if he is affiliated with the incense-burning jewelery sect.

Something strange is afoot. I don't know exactly what it is though. My spidey sense tells me this might be where they're hiding the Golden Child.

Or maybe selling mogwai out the back door.