Monkey!

You gotta hand it to the Chinese; when it comes to developing a language that lets you save money on make-it-yourself jewelry, they are ahead of the rest of world by centuries. Michelle and I were at Northland Village Mall this evening and she dragged me into this shop that sells beads and dangly things and all kinds of crap you can use to make pretty things for yourself to wear. In the spirit of the occasion, I thought I'd buy a few 8¢ little alphabet beads and make myself a necklace that says "monkey". But I wasn't thrilled with their plastic alphabet bead selection, and the metal ones were 70¢ a piece. Now, I don't mind looking a little gay for the privilege of wearing the word monkey around my neck, but I'm certainly not gonna pay $4.20 to do it. I considered just stealing the letters, since the single attendant probably wouldn't have noticed me slipping less than a combined cubic centimeter of them into my pocket, but that seemed like more risk than it was really worth.

I had all but abandoned my dreams of a funky new necklace when I spotted a bin of Chinese Zodiac pendants. The perfect solution! Why take 6 little metal pieces to do in english what one little metal piece can do all by itself in chinese? So I'm pretty psyched that the whole thing worked out so well.

And for those you wondering, I actually was born in a year of the Monkey, so I'm not totally bastardizing the symbol.