Is there a better place to get cheap  stuff and have a weird experience than Craigslist?  I don’t think so.  Did a very limited amount of research about beginner guitars before I found one I liked.  It’s a mahogany wood Washburn D100.  Some dude was selling a brand new one for $85 with a case.  After a few emails, he asked to meet in his neighborhood at a place I had never heard of called John’s Market.  I say cool; John’s Market seems like an upscale, natural food store.  On the way there, I pass a bunch of cool, safe-looking places like cafes and hip restaurants before finally arriving at John’s Market.  It’s a shady liquor store.  Like the type of shady liquor store where you have to leave your backpacks and purses at the counter.  The type of shady liquor store where a white girl should not pull money out of the ATM.  A shady liquor store with an unlit loose gravel parking lot.

So I find myself here, alone, in this unlit parking lot with a pocket full of money.  As the sun begins to go down, I wonder how the hell I am going to look at this guitar, which I know nothing about.  How should it sound?  How should it look? What the fuck am I doing here.  Why didn’t I just go to a store?  Against my better judgement, I walk up to his red Grand Prix (as previously discussed in our emails (should have been my first clue.))  I am completely relieved to see a young, smallish college student who is probably just looking to get beer money.  I pretend like I know what I’m talking about for about 60 seconds before I blow through all the guitar knowledge I currently possess.  I’m not in the mood to haggle, so I hand over the $85 and run quickly to my car before anyone realizes how out of place I really am.