Expensive

Other than my wedding ring, I don’t wear jewelry. When I was younger I occasionally wore a few bangle bracelets, but other than that… well, jewelry just doesn’t hold much appeal for me.

My sister, however, loves jewelry. Not cheap costume jewelry or imitation stones. Real jewelry with real gems. To each his — or her — own, I suppose. I can’t imagine spending so much money on what, to me, are meaningless trinkets, and neither can I imagine wearing thousands and thousands of dollars on my hands, my wrists, my neck, or my ears. And in today’s world, jewelry can go on ankles and navels, too. Thanks, but, no thanks.

Of course, jewelry was the first thing to come to my mind today for the expensive prompt. I chose pearls because I thought they would be fun to draw — another opportunity to use those ultra-fine Sharpies I recently bought. The first strand was fun. Adding a double strand, not so much. Some of my pearls look a bit like jelly beans, I think. Oh, well. Another day, another prompt. Inktober marches on.

While drawing these pearls, I had fun, too, thinking about the woman who might wear them and wondering how she came to possess them. Were they given to her by a lover? Or did she purchase the pearls for herself? I loved the way she casually tossed them onto the dresser, her way of showing how little money means to her.

That was one scenario. The rich, spoiled woman who either received the pearls as a gift from her unfaithful husband — Gracie Allen once quipped that she loved it when her husband, George Burns, had affairs because he always bought her the nicest gifts to assuage his conscience — or she bought the pearls herself in a snit when she learned of her spouse’s infidelity. Either way, she deserved something fine, don’t you think?

Another scenario also crossed my mind. Maybe these pearls belonged to our missing mother. You know, the mother of Exploding Brain Boy and wife of Cruel Stepfather. They were handed down to her from her mother and were the one truly expensive thing she ever owned. She kept them carefully wrapped in cloth, tucked away in a jewelry box, kept under lock and key.

But now she’s disappeared, and I fear the worst. Fat Uncle George found the pearls while rummaging around one day. I wonder what will become of them now. Will they be a gift for his new girlfriend? Or will they find their way to some pawnshop in town?

EDUCATIONAL INFO: The most valuable pearls occur spontaneously in the wild, but are extremely rare. These wild pearls are referred to as natural pearls. Cultured or farmed pearls from pearl oysters and freshwater mussels make up the majority of those currently sold.