Pick a Pearl

It was our last day in Kauai. Our plans of going to the Waimea Canyon were washed out by the incessant rain which started in the wee hours of the morning. My sadness at not being able to see the Canyon in all its grandeur was soon forgotten when I realized that the rains presented a perfect opportunity for some shopping. Up until this point my husband, Santa, had resisted my attempts at shopping with the excuse that there was no more space in our bags (which was sort of true). But is space an absolute requirement? Depends on what you buy, right? Now if you buy diamonds and pearls, you don’t need any space at all. Anyway…I had no plans of giving my husband that kind of shock.
Coming back to the story. I decided it was time for some Hilo Hattie shopping. I had been hearing about Hilo Hattie (HH) from Maui but didn’t find the opportunity to visit it on the previous three islands, and my purse was now bursting with all the HH discount coupons I had been collecting from all sorts of magazines -- in the hotels to the airplanes -- some of them as old as 2008. Never harmed anyone to have an extra piece of paper.
Upon entering the store we were greeted by a lady with a bright smile and shell leis. (Over 40 years in business HH is apparently the largest Hawaiian retailer and manufacturer of Hawaiian fashions in Hawaii.)The shell leis proved to be a perfect souvenir – one of them hangs from the rearview mirror of my car and the other adorns a photo frame.
As we were browsing the store I spotted a section in the middle dedicated to pearls which belonged to Maui Divers Jewelry (MDJ). Seeing no one behind the counter I started surveying the various colors and designs of the pearls on display. I was so engrossed in those exquisite beauties that I had not noticed the appearance of a salesperson at the scene until she startled me with her very friendly, “May I help you?”
“Umm…I was just looking around…” I replied as I got ready to walk away. Since I had no intention of buying any I didn’t want to waste either my or the salesperson’s time and energy. Added to this was my distrust of sales personnel who can persuade you to buy things which are totally indispensable. As I was planning my escape Santa popped up beside me, done with his browsing of the entire HH store.
“Like anything?” he asked me.
“Nah…just looking,” I said.
As we were about to leave, the lady chipped in once again, “Have you heard about our pick a pearl?”
(Me) “No”
(Santa) “What’s that?”
And we were stuck. Pointing to a big white oyster shaped bowl filled with an assortment of oysters on the counter, the lady explained that we could pick an oyster of our choice and then have the pearls inside it (if there were any) mounted right there. Jewelry to go! As if that was not enough there was also a lottery where we could win discount coupons for the pearls. I mumbled something about not being interested, a feeble protest at best, as my inherent distrust for discount coupons (because more often than not there’s a catch involved) was succumbing rapidly to the thrill and suspense. The more I tried to resist the more I was being lured into the whole thing. And Santa wasn’t helping either by egging me on.
Now why was I resisting so hard or at least trying to? Because all the discounts and rebates are designed to attract the shopper’s attention in such a manner that they ultimately end up buying things which they probably didn’t even need in the first place. And right now the same thing was happening to me. I wouldn’t have minded winning a precious pearl if I liked it; but I wasn’t too fond of pearls, yet I was participating. Anyway…
We took part in the lottery. Santa put his hand inside a hexagonal bowl full of colored paper chits and fished out a pink one, which announced a 60% discount. Not bad. We were too deep into this. I had to do something. So I told the lady that we’d finish our shopping and then maybe come back. She totally understood and let us go with a sweet smile. Probably because she knew that we’d be back very soon.
And much of the credit for that goes to my husband. While shopping for other things I had regained some of my guard but apparently not enough because Santa persuaded me to give it a shot. The proponent of enthusiasm and logical thinking that he is he explained that 60% off of 14$ (the cost of the pearl) was a meager amount. And if we there was no pearl inside our oyster, even better. No money spent. Either ways there was nothing to lose. So half an hour later we were back at the MDJ corner.
The lady was all smiles. She gave us a pair of tongs and asked to pick an oyster from the big white bowl. Since Santa had done the lottery this time I got to try my luck.
“Do all of them have a pearl inside?” I asked.
“It may have, it may not have. Sometimes they may have two,” she said. And as a hint she let out that the uglier the oyster the more chances of it having a pearl. With that hint in mind I tossed and turned the oysters with the tongs until I decided that I had found one ugly enough. Once my selection was done the lady took over and performed a aloha ritual, as she called it, where we were asked to say aloha three times together with her. And then she slid open the shell of the oyster and felt its insides searching for the pearl. Amidst all of this the anticipation was building on our side. And then she found it. It was a pink one. She placed the beautiful thing on a tray and resumed her search. And lo behold! Out came one more pink pearl. Wow! That’s great. I thanked Santa in my mind. “Two pearls…means you’ll have twins,” the lady said with a bright smile. Now that’s some totally uncalled for surprise!
She then drilled a hole in each of them so that it could be mounted. I didn’t want to go into any sort of mounting because it would be expensive. Again Santa encouraged me to explore the designs. Since there were two pearls the lady showed me mountings for earrings. I selected a tiny one with a silver body. The price was $350. I haven’t been stung by a sting ray but I’m pretty sure it’ll be very similar to the shock I felt on hearing the price. I knew it would be expensive but had no idea that it would be ultra expensive. Even my over enthusiastic ever encouraging husband was taken aback. I could hear him muttering under his breath “pachhondota to besh bhaloi”. When I declined she showed me another one that was ‘less expensive’ another tiny mounting that would cost only $280. And all these prices were before tax and the mounting charge. Santa smiled at me and said, “Do you like it? If you like it you can take it…” Much as he encouraged me (with a fearful panting heart I am sure) I didn’t fall for any of it and just took the drilled pearls in a Ziploc and walked away triumphantly. I wonder what he’d have done if I had said yes to the mounting!
Later on when we were relating this story to a friend and his wife they said that apparently all the oysters in the MDJ pick a pearl program have two pearls in them; it is alleged that they are injected artificially. They knew three other people who had done the same thing and got two pearls and all of them were told that they’d have twins. We don’t know if any of them have had twins. As for me I am in no hurry to find out.

Photo link @ Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/santapc/sets/72157623167395564/