The Fairie Fantatic

pThere are two posts from a while ago, Glitter Dragons and Sexy (Sometimes Lesbian) Fairies and Fairie Foam, which described an array of decorative--and often scandalous--fairie and/or dragon statuettes. At first, these items sold really well, but lately the demand has lulled and we have been sitting on a large quantity of them for quite some time. But all of that changed today.

This evening, a gentleman struck a deal with the head manager of the store. He wanted to put every single fairie and dragon we had (except for the repeats) on lay-a-way, but the way he wanted to go about paying off his lay-a-way violated a couple different stipulations of our normal lay-a-way procedures. For starters, lay-a-ways generally require a non-refundable down payment of 25% of the final cost of the transaction. This man wanted to purchase almost $1,200 of fairie items and wanted to only pay $100 up front. Secondly, normal lay-a-ways are only 60 days long and if they are not picked up by then, the items are considered forfeited and the customer loses them and the money they had put down. This gentleman, however, offered to faithfully pay $100 a month until his debt was fulfilled.

This offer probably would not have flown if it had been made by anyone else other than this man. This man has a history with our little pawn shop, a history which includes similar monstrous lay-a-ways (one involving over thirty swords of various shapes and sizes) and which has proven him true to his long-term payment promises. So, the management agreed to make an exception, with dollar signs in their eyes, undoubtedly.

I was lucky enough to help label and put away these fairies and dragons which numbered more than thirty. The expansiveness of the array was impressive. There was a fairie with long black and white striped stockings in a ballerina pose, a fairie holding a crystal ball in one hand while a dog-sized dragon crawled up her leg, a fairie sitting on a large toadstool in a thoughtful pose with her chin on her hand and her elbow on her knee, there was a fairie which looked like a female version of Captain America with an attached oil burner, a fairie holding a lantern out in front of her with a wolf at her side, and many, many more. All of these were fairly small, about twelve inches in height. But the fairie table (pictured to the left) was too amazing for me to resist snapping a picture when no one was looking. No, your eyes do not deceive you. It is an end table, about thirty inches tall. And it will be proudly displayed in this man's living room in about ten months once he's paid everything off.

With my mind boggled by the thought of anyone buying so many fairies, I decided to do something drastic. While I was helping tuck the fairies away in the warehouse for their ten to eleven month lay-a-way slumber, the man was lingering around the store and I asked if he had enough space in his house to display all of these miniature statues. He informed me that he did, that he had many, many glass shelves just for this purpose. I then responded that I would love to see what his living room looked like once he had taken all of his fairies home and told him he should bring in a picture for us all to see. He seemed thrilled by my interest and smiled with great pleasure.

Sadly, I will not be around to see a picture if he really does take eleven months to pay off this lay-a-way (as I plan to either go to graduate school or move far away by then). I can only hope that he pays if off much sooner than expected and I am blessed with the visual presentation of his decorative master plan.