My $300 Mid-Life Crisis

I know it's fairly trite to talk about or to have a mid-life crisis. Usually it was an excuse for some guy to make a poor decision in his life and then hold on to that poor decision with delusional strength, under the guise that some "crisis" prompted him to suddenly reevaluate his entire life. I always joked that it would be a sports car, or a tattoo or a mistress. Or a tattoo of a mistress in a sports car. But little did I know the object of my midlife crisis would creep up on me like some adoloescent urge.

I wanted to learn how to play guitar.

Not Rock Band guitar. And not electric guitar. Just plain acoustic guitar.

Now, I have no compulsion to be a guitar performer and grace the subways with folk songs for spare change, or to work some coffee house or open mic night. I always enjoyed folk-oriented rock, and found the guitar appealing. And with the years slowly passing by, I figured, why the hell not? If not now, when? And being 45 and not overly active, it dove-tailed perfectly into my sedentary lifestyle.
The advantage to learning to play guitar now and not in my youth is that now we have the internet.
I was able to browse around and research what would be the best guitar for a beginner. And since most guitar players are like any other enthusiasts, you can't shut them up when you ask them for their opinion.

So after some modest research I settled on my guitar of choice, a Yamaha FG700S.
Awesome! Now that I know WHAT to buy, I had to find where to buy it. So I did a search for local retailers and the first hit that came up was . . . Best Buy?

I was a little confused. Since when did Best Buy go into the musical instrument business? From the answer of my local Best Buy associate, about 3 years ago. Not every store has a musical instrument department, so it wasn't a well-known fact. And for the entire state of Illinois, there are three locations that sell them. And one was 10 minutes from my house.

It sounds like the start of an insult. "Where did you buy that guitar? Best Buy? Haw haw haw!"

Amazingly, the people at Best Buy were very knowledgable. They could play the instruments they sold. And the prices were as good as any online. Also, I wanted to talk to a person, and have somewhere I could go back to if I had questions. So off I went. Guitar: $200. Case: $50. Guitar Stand: $15. Total cost for my mid-lefe crisis, plus tax: $300.

Now, how much for that tattoo?