THE Guitar

Years ago, when Jeremy and I had just moved in together, Jeremy was the proud owner of two guitars. His Flying V and his new Explorer. We displayed them proudly in our sparsely furnished living room. Jeremy was over the moon when he got that Explorer. He took pictures and everything as soon as he had it home and unwrapped. Well, very shortly after we had moved into our apartment we obtained a cat. Squeak was just a scrawny little kitten when he came to live with us. Little did we know what he would cost us. I guess you could say it was our fault for not doing it properly. We didn't have the money to pay for a pet deposit, so we just didn't pay. We had Squeak in our apartment illegally. OOOhhhhh. lol. I can't remember what we were thinking, if we planned to try and pay the deposit eventually? The details are a little fuzzy now. But, we were discovered before we paid the deposit. So we owed the $200 for the deposit AND a $50 fee for having the cat in the first place. And that $50 would have increased every day we didn't pay. What were we suppose to do? We didn't have $250 so we certainly couldn't let it get any higher. We had to make the gut-wrenching decision to pawn his Explorer. It was nearly the only thing we had worth anything at that time. So we went and we pawned it and we got the money to keep Squeak. I cried on the way home from the pawn shop. It was just an awful situation.

Anyway, we were never able to get the Explorer back from the pawn shop. It was lost to us. And THEN, ESP stopped making them. *gasp* That meant that Jeremy's chances of being to purchase another one declined significantly. For years and years now Jeremy has pined over his lost guitar. He has kept a picture of it on our bulletin board here in the office.He has found them being sold on ebay and would have to let them go because we just didn't have the money to even put a bid in. But, this year was different. Jeremy finally put a bunch of his extra guitar parts on ebay and made $500! Yes, that much. And he was on the HUNT for an Explorer. A few days had gone by and he didn't really find anything on ebay. I kept telling him to be patient. That he would find it if he just gave it some time. And he did! And it was exactly $500! Fate, anyone?

So, Jeremy was anxiously awaiting the arrival of his new Explorer. He kept a very, very close eye on the FedEx tracking. And on the day of delivery, Jeremy was like a little boy on the night before Christmas. He couldn't wait. When he came home for lunch he reported that there was no tag on the door (we were expecting one as they wouldn't leave it there). And then when I got home I reported that there was STILL no tag. No problem. It was still early. Maybe we would be lucky and they would deliver it while we were home. It would certainly save us a trip to the FedEx office. But then, about an hour later, I get a call from Jeremy. He wanted to make sure that there was NO tag. And there wasn't. And that was a problem because the FedEx website said it had been delivered at 1:00 that afternoon and signed for by a 'NNELSON'. Well, we don't know any NNELSON's. Yeah...right into frantic 'where the hell is my guitar' mode. Jeremy hurried home and called the local FedEx office, they told us they would contact the delivery guy immediately to gather more information. As we waited for the call back we talked about different scenarios..none of them sounding promising. The only thing that really stuck, however, was the neighbors. They are having work done on their house and have workers coming and going. We jumped right to that conclusion, naturally, that a worker signed for our package with the intentions of keeping it. We seriously did think it was foul play. And then we got the call back from FedEx, the delivery guy assured us that it was our neighbor..as in the owner of the house..that signed for our package. It was pure luck that we even had the guys number. He gave it to us over a year ago when he moved out and left his very old (like 91 years old) grandmother living in that house by herself. We have never had to use it and I'm glad that we didn't throw it away because we needed it NOW. Jeremy gave the guy a call..who we know as JAMES (no last name..we don't even know his last name) and he did in fact sign for our package. He was on the way over and would drop it off.

I still cannot believe that the neighbor did that. We don't have that sort of relationship. We talk over the fence every now and again, and he is friendly enough, and he has mentioned many times that if we needed anything to ask. And if we DID need anything from him we WOULD HAVE asked. But we didn't ask him to do that for us. *sigh* Crisis averted. Me, feeling guilty for automatically assuming it was one of the workers. But, I'm relieved that it is here..and safe.