Alexandrite [yak]

Had to tell this dumb story: When I was about fourteen, I
was at a mall,(one of the first I’m sure…jeez I’m old), with a
girlfriend and her mother, and I spotted in a store window, this
beautiful equidistant cross, on a large chain. The cross was
covered with filigree,and raised in the middle. Set in the
center, was a large…purple stone…hey, stop laughing…I was
fourteen, it was beautiful. Ok?.. I bought it for some
exorbitant-to-me sum, and wore the cross out of the store. All
that day, I shopped with my friend in the mall, and looked at
the cross, admiring it. When it was time to go home, I tucked the
cross under my coat, and buttoned it up.

On the way home in the car, I took out the cross to look at it
again…and somehow, it had turned completely yellow! My mind
raced…was it always yellow?..Ahhh…No. Did I do something to
it to make it yellow?..Like what? Hey…maybe it was a mood
stone,(told you I was old). I tried warming it in my hands,
surreptitiously, because I figured that since my friend’s mom
didn’t think much of me to begin with…too wierd…this would
for sure cement me into the, “undesireable”, category. Warming
didn’t work, and staring at it, to will it back to purple didn’t
do much either. All the way home, there I was, staring at this
stone, certain that I had finally lost it. Or barring that, I
figured that it was a private sign to me that magic existed.
Anything…

When I got home, I ran into the house, and breathlessly told my
mom about the cross, whipping it out to show
her…Eeeeek!!!..It was purple again…I had lost my mind!
She looked at me, looked at the cross, and said, “that’s
nice…now can you get ready for dinner?” Ok, it was confirmed, I
was hallucinating. I took the cross, and stared at it, and slowly
walked to the window to get a better look. The nearer I got to
the window, the yellower the stone became. What a relief! I was
not insane, well not mostly anyway, the stone itself, was
actually changing colors.

I think I must have taken that cross in and out of doors enough
times that day, to make my mother seriously consider the therapy
that the school had been suggesting, and a visit to the local
old-timer jeweler that had practically adopted me, cleared it up.
It was a synthetic Alexandrite. That incident sealed my
fascination for the real thing, and I’ve bought, and hoarded,
several small ones over the years. Still, every time I think of
that first glance at that yellow stone that I knew for a fact,
was purple, I completely crack up. This thread has had me smiling
every day. Thanks.

Lisa, (dogs came home, mud up to their elbows, grins on their faces, one of them
carrying a shed deer antler in his mouth)
Topanga, CA USA