Mellow Musicians Make Me Mad

I play the dulcimer. It's a beautiful wooden instrument with four strings. It's easy to play and is a great American instrument. No one knows what it is. Well, almost no one. My father attempted to build one for my mother and it ended up being a catalyst for their relationship. My mother purchased one for my father on their 25th wedding anniversary and I stole it. A month ago, I broke the bass string on this instrument. I was advised to go to a music store and buy a new string.

I preface this with one addition, I am well aware of the rarity of my instrument and that my restringing a dulcimer is probably something few people who work at a music store have done. And still, I am peeved.

I entered Whitaker's music store with my broken string and my manual that described the range of diameters of my bass string. The only person in the store was the clerk who strummed his guitar, playing no song in particular. He smiled politely as we entered and continued his strumming. I walked toward him with determination and said, "I would like to replace the string on my dulcimer. This is the broken string." He continued strumming and smiling vaguely to himself. I waited and he didn't respond so I continued, "The manual says it should be between, .014" and .021"." No response.

Finally, he put down his guitar and said, "Sure, a dulcimer, uh yeah." His sarcasm was dripping from his lips and I handed him my string. "Huh," he eloquently commented. "It could be like a guitar string, but does it have to have this loop thing at the end?" I agree that this is a valid question and one to which I did not have an answer. So I went back to the car and brought in my dulcimer. Before I continue, I feel the you cannot understand this experience if you are not reading his words in the proper tone. You must imagine every surfer/hippie that has ever been parodied and mix that with early twenties garage bander, then slow it down twenty fold. This is our guy.

"Oh, yeah, of course a dulcimer," he said as he took it from the case and screwed up his face in confusion. Yeah, I get that it's a strange instrument. Get me a string. "So what made you pick up this?" "It was a gift from my mother to my father and I stole it." "Stealing is good," he smiled as he tried to place the dulcimer on some sort of stand and as it slid off the stand, he removed it.

We spent the next 10 minutes with him trying to replace my string. If I interjected anything, he would get confused and need to start over. He paused once to help another customer and then returned with my broken string in his hand. He seemed to have forgotten what he was trying to do because he tried to restring it with my broken string. "Nope, that won't work. Oh, wait, what am I doing? That's your string you came in with." He then tossed my string over his shoulder and tried to attach a violin string. He unwound it and realized it was too small. "Maybe we could try a cello string?" He looked to me as if I was the one who knew what to do. I shrugged and did not hold much hope. He walked back toward his cabinet of strings, did not pull out any more and said, "I don't think I have any strings long enough. Did you try online?" "No," I replied, thinking I thought a music store might be a little more helpful that the internet.

I packed up my instrument and asked for my string back. "Uhh...huh, that's weird. Where did it go?"

"I saw you throw it over your shoulder."

He looked up in utter dazed astonishment, "I did? No."

"Yeah, remember you accidentally tried it back on my dulcimer and realized it was the wrong one and threw it over your shoulder."

"Really? That's weird." He then looked for it for another 5 minutes.

"That's ok. I'll just go."

"No, this is really ********. You like come in here all wanting help and stuff and not only can I not help you, I make it worse by losing your string. {expletive}"

"It's fine."

We left the store and my friends and I just started laughing. "Wow," I said, "that would have been the biggest waste of time, except I write a blog and that made that experience awesome."