True Pandora Friends

I have the friendship charm and so do two of my greatest friends on earth. This is what I see when I wear this charm.

One day I was in a local store that sells jewelry and I wanted to buy a charm for a girlfriend. It is one of my friends that had given me a charm for my bridal shower. I was confused because there were a lot of different charms and a couple different companies that made charms. I had to leave and ask my friend what company she liked. She told me she was very happy with the Pandora charms and since I had been given some of these charms, I decided to go with that company. I bought her a little silver charm for her birthday and I took it to Florida because we were having our annual girls get together for a three day weekend. We had all graduated college together and promised that we would make an annual trip together with just us girls because we had settled in very different parts of the country. We had so much fun sleeping in the mornings, laying on the beach mid-day, and trying new restaurants at night. We only had a few days together but it was so good to see them in a fun location like Florida. I had brought my friends Pandora charm present with me for her birthday. She brought my birthday present with her because my birthday was coming up soon. We were unsure that we each had done this though. One night after our typical day, we stood in this long line for this Italian restaurant. We figured the line was long so the food must be great. Finally, the host for the restaurant seated us at a table outside with a large umbrella to shade us. We had some sodas and ordered our food. We sat talking and then my friend called over the waiter to tell her we were celebrating our birthdays, we got a free dessert for that. After we ate our food and free birthday desert, I brought out my gift for my friend, and she did the same. We opened our presents together as our third friend watched with excitement. We did not take turns opening these gifts but instead opened them at the same time. To our amazement we had just both opened the same gift! I had chosen the same charm that she had chosen for me! It was the pandora silver friendship charm. It is very cool because it is a bunch of connected circles and some little stud cubic zirconias on it. We were all speechless and just sat there staring at one another. We really thought our third friend had probably slipped the gift idea to one of us but she denied this. We both love this charm because of its name and the fact that we bought and received it for our birthdays.

After this evening ended we went back to our hotel on the beach to sleep off the fun. On our last day together we all were walking down this little tourist street; we were having fun going into every shop and looking around. One shop in particular held even more friendship fun because it was a small jewelry and coin shop. The store was full of unique things to look at and try on, we noticed they had the charms from Pandora. I was in complete tourist heaven because I had not been in a store with so many different little charms. I stumbled onto the silver friendship charm and pulled my girlfriend to the side, the one I had already exchanged this charm with the previous evening. We were attempting to be so secretive and whispering that we should buy this charm for our third girlfriend and give it to her as an early birthday gift, that way we’d all have the same friendship charm in silver. I acted as a distraction for our third friend, Anna, and made up a story that I wanted to look at the gold rings so we headed to a different side of the store. Meanwhile our other friend, Tia, purchased this little charm as quickly as possible. She had to let the checkout girl know that we were buying it for Anna so she would try to be quiet. After Tia was done purchasing the charm we all got back together and each picked out our own silver spacer charm for our current bracelets, this was an easy purchase because those spacers are inexpensive and very fun to add to our collection. We then left and headed to lunch, the charm stayed in Tia’s purse for almost the entire day until we got back to the hotel room. From there we were able to orchestrate going out for drinks and making her early birthday present extra special for us all. We all got ready, went to the hotel bar and lounge, ate some appetizers and drank some cold margaritas. From there Tia and I were commenting how much we liked our friendship charm and on and on, to the point that Anna started to look left out. That is when Tia popped out the charm from her purse, it was unwrapped in this small paper bag folded up. We gave that paper bag to Anna and she opened it with a huge smile on her face. She was so happy and felt ‘connected’ to us as a group. These charms are so amazing because already I have not only replaced my charm bracelet that I lost as a little girl, but now it is even better than before with all the mystery and surprise that comes with each Pandora charm.

- Cheryl O.