< PREVIOUS LETTER   ||   SHOUTOUTS >
 

Dear Breakup Girl,

Here's a stuff-related question: I broke up with my boyfriend of nearly eight months about two months ago. When I did the deed, I offered to return his Christmas gift to me. (It was a necklace with a Celtic cross -- a really nice gift laden with symbolism that I felt was maybe too much at the time for where we were in the relationship.) He refused to accept my offer to return it.

I don't feel at all right about keeping it, but I don't feel right about just hocking it or donating it to a thrift shop, either. I'm tempted to wait a while and make the offer again or wait for an opportunity to give it away. But, I'm also in the middle of paying off a big credit card debt and this thing is probably pretty valuable. (I have no idea what he paid for it, of course, but he tended to be an extravagant giver.) So, there's a devilish voice in my head saying, "There's gotta be a way to unload this and get another hundred bucks or two to throw at your debt." Oh, wise BG, what say you?

-- Sharkey

Dear Sharkey,

Here is a list of things that are truly not wrong.

1. Paying off credit card debt first and foremost, even before saving.
2. Giving a boyfriend gift to a friend as a "No hard feelings for him, but don't want this around...yet it has some sentimental value, and I'd like you to have it" gift.
3. Giving a boyfriend gift to a friend for "Please hang onto this heavily symbolic item for me until I decide to do what it" safekeeping.
4. Hocking a boyfriend gift -- if you will not feel icky about that forever -- in order to meet the very legit goal of #1.
5. Not hocking a boyfriend gift even if #1 is an issue; sentimental value rates can run higher than, oh, 17%.

I hereby give you permission to do any (or more than one, or a few in succession) of those things. In any case, what you've got here is the rare situation where, depending what you decide, you can both try to pay off high-interest debt and save something valuable.

Love,
Breakup Girl

P.S. Okay, yeeeeeeah, but I just have to say: am I the only one who's a teeny bit superstitious about hocking a cross? In my imagination, that could result only in a creepy trail of dimly overtoned indie movie misadventures, or a episode of "Touched by an Angel." But don't let me stop you.

NEXT UP:
SHOUTOUTS