During my lunch break on Friday, I decided that now would be the best time to go looking for a birthday present for a good friend of mine. Of course I knew that I was not going to find anything in any of the jewelery stores in the shopping center because they are all chain stores and sell quite generic things that you could find anywhere. It wasn’t until I got to Goldmark (yes, I am going to name names because this shouldn’t happen) that I felt embarrassed by one of the shop assisstants there.

See, my friend likes marcasite. Loves it, in fact. So of course I wanted to get something with Marcasite for her birthday. Although, you won’t find it in a lot of these chain jewelery stores because I guess… it’s too “vintage” looking for their bling shit. Either way, I went to Goldmark and could not find any pieces with marcasite. So instead of overlooking something, I decided to ask for help.

“Have you got anything with marcastie?” I asked the girl at the counter. She looked at me strangely and then said “What?”

I’m telling you now, if my boss at my deli job from back in the day (aka February) heard me asking a customer to repeat something by saying “What?” I would have recieved a harsh scolding and not heard the end of it until the end of my shift and then probably be gently reminded the next day to use “pardon” instead.

“Marcasite.” I repeated.

“What is that?” She asked me.

I have to admit, I was slightly stunned. I don’t really know why I just assumed that everyone would know what I’m talking about but if I am in a jewelery shop, then I kind of do.

“It’s a stone. Well actually it’s a metal. It looks kind of black or grey.” I tried to explain.

“Oh, you mean like Onyx?”

“Uh… no. It’s not totally black it kind of looks metallic.” At this point I spotted a ring on a poster behind her that used CZ’s but kind of looked like marcasite. I pointed it out to her. “It looks like that ring.”

She turned around and pointed to the earrings which had amythest in them. “You mean this?” She asked.

I avoided looking and behaving frustrated and shook my head politely and said “The ring, next to it. It kind of looks detailed like that.”

“That’s Cubic Zirconia.”

By this time I was about to just turn around and leave the shop without saying anything because it was obvious to me that she was hopeless. But then I tried to remember what it was like working in retail and how many customers probably thought that I was hopeless but were still kind to me anyway. So I remained patient and tried to explain what marcasite looked like.

Either she got frustrated with me because we weren’t going anywhere, or she was frustrated because she had never heard of marcasite she says, “I have never heard of that stone. I did a jewelery course and a unit on gemstones and I’ve never heard of it.” By this point, she just made me feel stupid. I could feel my face getting hot and flushed because I felt so embarrased. “I’ve been in this business a long time and I’ve never heard of that stone. It doesn’t exist.”

My face just kept getting hotter and I was about to thank her and leave when another sales assistant walked out from the back and asked, “What doesn’t exist?”

The sales “assistant” who was “helping” me looked at me to tell the other girl what I was looking for.

“Marcasite.” I said meekly. I was so embarrassed that this other one had made me feel stupid that I was almost convinced that I was and was sorry for even asking for her “help” in the first place.

“Oh yeah, it’s over here.” The other girl led me to the counter outside where there was a display of marcasite pieces. I didn’t feel I had to say anything to the other girl. I didn’t feel like I had to look at her or validate her at all. I am quite sure she went and told her friends at the back that I was mispronouncing the name and that is why she didn’t know what I was talking about, and that I probably didn’t speak English too well so her co-workers wouldn’t think she was the stupid one. Of course, that would explain why the other girl immediately knew what I was talking about.

I walked away, not being able to find anything, with my face still hot. I was still embarrassed and then I started to get pissed off, only to be distracted by a dress in a clothes shop.