This Shopping Trip Will Bear No Fruit

(We’re visiting my fiance’s grandparents for the holidays, and they decide to take us to Tlaquepaque, which is an arts and crafts gallery/shopping center. While his grandma is looking at rings in a shop we wander further to the back to look at several skulls that caught my fiance’s eye, one of which appears to be carved quartz. As he debates buying one, I happen to notice a tiny figure sitting on a table marked as clearance items. I point it out to him.)

Me: “Isn’t that pretty? I wonder why she’s on clearance?”

(He picks up the figure and carefully turns her over, revealing a small chip on her backside just below the tag that lists her price and piece’s name, which I recognize as an Eastern goddess.)

Fiancé: “There you go. She’s got a little nick on her base. Fifty bucks isn’t bad for jade or even jadeite, if you want to take her home. Though I can’t pronounce her name or tell you who or what she is.”

Me: *smiling, knowing how he’ll react* “It’s Quan Yin and, among other things, she’s a goddess of fertility and children.”

(Just as I expected, my fiancé carefully but quickly puts the goddess back on the table.)

Fiancé: *shoos me toward the exit* “She’s too tiny to be that expensive. Let’s move on.”

(I couldn’t help laughing at his sudden change of heart. For the record, at the time of this story I was six months pregnant. And, yes, he did buy me a pretty souvenir at another shop.)