Guitarzan!

Several years ago (closer to fifteen than ten) I worked in my mother's insurance office for the summer between my freshman and sophomore years of high school. I knew exactly what I wanted to do with that money, and being my father's daughter, I could not be trusted not to blow it, so I simply handed my paychecks to my mom to save for me. At the end of the summer, my parents threw in a little bit to help me out, and I bought the most beautiful Gibson acoustic-electric guitar you've ever seen! It's still one of my prized possessions, but I never learned to play it.

I have decided it's time to remedy that situation. If you know the basics of music theory, and have a decent ear, you can teach yourself to play the guitar. And I know several chords, I've just never taken the time to practice transitioning them into an actual song! Now is the time. I need a hobby to get my mind off work and money woes, and music is a proven stress reliever.

So after putting my guitar on my tenant's insurance policy (I am living in the big bad city now, after all!) I moved my guitar from my mom's house to mine, and settled in to teach myself to play that bad boy (girl?) I started to tune it with my ancient-but-reliable guitar tuner, and all was going well until- PING!- a string broke. (The G string, as a matter of fact, much to my roomie's amusement.) So I heaved an impatient, 'the-world-is-against-me' sigh and put the guitar away.

The next afternoon, my birthday, I came home from work, grabbed the guitar, and headed down the street to Amro. Yes, they said, they do sell guitar strings. No, they said, they didn't have anyone to advise me on what kind to get or how to put them on. I should try Yarbrough's at Sycamore View and I-240.

Well, of course. Yarbroughs is my music retailer of choice in the first place, but they're also about a million miles away, they close at 6:00, and I had a movie to get to. So, dejected again, I started to head home. Then I remembered a little store right down the street from my apartment that had a sign out front advertising guitars and amps. It was clearly a small, independent business, so I thought for sure there was someone there willing to help a sista out.

I walked into a messy, interesting little used bookstore with guitar accessories and the owner's custom-made guitars all over the place. The owner was a very hippie-ish guy, really nice, who not only sold me the strings I needed, but put them on and demonstrated for me, so I would know how to do it in the future. All that and a kapo, and it came out to right about what I would have spent for strings alone at Amro. I was very impressed! I went home happy, and have spent the past two nights learning to play Patty Griffin's "Moses."

But the story doesn't end there. The store had one of those old-fashioned credit card machines; no new technology whatsoever. I checked my bank balance this morning, and it was about $90 less than it should have been. I looked at my statement online, and the guy had run my card twice, causing two other transactions not to go through, costing me two $32 NSF fees! I was freaking out! I called the guy, and he apologized profusely and told me he would write me a check for the extra amount. All well and good, but what about the $64 his screw-up cost me?! I called my bank, and they told me to bring in the check he'll write me, and they will put in a request to waive my NSF fees. That's good, I guess, but something tells me that request will be denied, and I won't see that $64. I don't know why- maybe it's because I'm naturally pessimistic, and I've resigned myself that I will never be in good financial standing, ever. Meanwhile, I have to hold off on paying my bills until this gets cleared up, costing me late fees... I am so frustrated!

This whole guitar-playing thing is not proving to be such a stress-free pastime, after all...