Lyn and I go to 580 Fifth Avenue in search of Henry, the diamond merchant.
As we enter the building, we get a sense that this is no ordinary jewelry building. Security is tight. We have to present photo ids and declare who we are visiting.
The guard does not know Henry by name. I show him Henry's website on my cell phone. "Oh...he's with the Diamond Dealers Club on the 10th floor." We are shown the way to the elevator.
We arrive at the tenth floor and are confused. Which door? The path to Henry is not obvious.
Another security guard is sitting on a stool in the hall. He looks at us but does not speak. He is odd-looking with paint-splattered shoes and seems a little "off" as in mentally.
I ask if he knows Henry and where I might find him. He is the first person to know Henry so I'm relieved. "But I haven't seen him today," he says.
"Well, can we go to his office?" I'm thinking it will be like the store we just came from and we could at least peruse the merchandise.
The guard laughs. "There's nothing to see." We're confused. We ask if he could let us in. He laughs again and says, "Henry's not here. You can't go in. There's nothing for you to see." We persist, feeling like Dorothy asking to be let into the Emerald Palace.
"Okay. Go back in the elevator, up to the 11th floor. Get out and walk down the hall to a set of stairs to the tenth floor (aren't we on the tenth floor now?) Ask them to page Henry and if he's there, they'll let you in. But he's not there." We decide to skip going, but just then the elevator appears and it's going up. "Okay, we're already here, let's go up."
We do all that (getting lost along the way). We get to the other side of the 10th floor and there is more security here than on Wall Street. It looks like a police station. I've lost my appetite for shopping. I just want to leave but now I have to go the bathroom.
We ask the guard if we can use the ladies' room. He confiscates our drivers' licenses and we head to the ladies' room, walking through a large open area.
Here's what the large room looks like. No jewelry. No computers or office equipment. No women. Just men. Mostly Hasidim. They are staring at us. One is on a headset doing diamond trading. Apparently, we've just stumbled into the inner sanctum of diamond dealing.
We visit the ladies' room and get the heck out of there.
As I drive home to Boston, I reflect upon what I saw that day both in the stores and in the diamond dealers' offices.
While I appreciate my pendant more, I think I like it less. It should give me more pleasure than it does. I think the real reason I can't decide what to do with it is that it is just not me.
As Benjamin Franklin said: "Don't let your possessions possess you."
The pendant is back in its case, under lock and key.
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