Guitar

Geoff broke three of his six guitar strings, forcing me to need to stop in at Guitar Center on the way home this evening.

I felt a little weird in my dockers and my pink blouse, with my little purse. I didn't feel all rock and roll, the way I did all weekend long as I celebrated the joy that is Guster and my Rock And Roll Lifestyle (a great song by Cake, if you aren't familiar).

When I walked in the door, I was immediately approached by a very tall red-headed young man who smiled and asked if I needed help.

I felt for a second as if he really wanted to say, with utter disdain, "Hey Lady... you're in the wrong store. The puppy store is across the way. And Wal-Mart is behind us."

But he spoke with absolutely no disdain or disgust. He was smiley and helpful, and leaned in politely and made eye contact.

It frightened me. This isn't what I expected.

"Um, yes. I need some guitar strings. My son broke three of his so I guess a full set of six is good. I'll take the Ernie Balls there in the blue packet (four bucks and change, thank you very much) and a couple of picks too while we're at it."

He looked pleased. Oh joy, the woman is in the right store and knows what she needs. The only thing I did wrong was ...

"Electric or acoustic?"

"Oh! Acoustic, thanks." I guess it makes a humongous difference, although the packet I got is clearly labeled nickel strings for acoustic or electric... but whatever.

I looked around the store and all kinds of rock star wannabe guys were there, some with girlfriends in tow. Some guys dressed similar to me in their dockers and work dress shirts were trying out guitars and being helped in a similarly fine fashion by the staff there. No "you're not pierced and inked so we will ignore you!" attitudes.

It was a very pleasant experience.

I got home and put the strings on the guitar and immediately broke one of them myself. Good lord. It wasn't even like tight or anything. Just ... sproing! broken. So I have to go back. I managed to tune the guitar via a webpage mp3 file, and even though he only has five strings, it sounds a lot better than it did just a few hours ago.

Now he wants a guitar strap. Jeeesh. I'm going to become some sort of Guitar Center regular at this rate.

Anyway -- that's about it for me. Good feed rss thing, good guitar experience. Good night.