Why they pawn — playing the long iron game
As we often say here at Kamaaina Loan blog, unlike at the bank, you don’t have to tell us why you want to borrow money. It’s don’t ask, don’t tell at the pawnbroker.
You could call it a sad iron
But sometimes we wonder, all the same.
From Bangkok, an unusual example of how a customer uses a pawnshop:
It seems he pawned an iron — Lovestar brand — 15 years ago and has been paying interest on it regularly ever since. Since he’s not rolling over the interest, it isn’t a case of owing much more than the iron is worth.
According to the Bangkok Post, pawn shop employee Nattarak Peekklang thinks, “The customer may think that his iron is better kept inside the shop’s safe than at his home.”
Maybe. But he isn’t taking the iron out to use it from time to time then returning it to “storage.” He isn’t even using his iron the way David Copperfield’s old nurse, Peggotty, did in Dickens’ novel, pawning hers for sixpence each Friday and redeeming it each Monday because she never can keep to a budget.
But Mr. Nattrarak follows the international Code of the Pawnbroker:
I never ask him why he doesn’t pay it all off at once