It takes a man to play a Peavey.

Every afternoon, right about this time, our mischievous sprite, Chris, will haul out a classic American solid body electric guitar and play a series of notes, runs, riffs, scales and phrases in a particular idiom; one that every retail music store employee eventually comes to know and dread. But this day was different. An anomalous event, an occurrence of such rarity that even it's observation meant a disturbance in the Force. Drawn by an irresistible urge, Chris plugged this orphaned instrument in, cranked the gain to "Terminator Bees," and began to fingertap like Steve Vai in the 1986 Ralph Macchio vehicle Crossroads, furiously chasing the Divine Muse of Death Metal across the foul undead Plain of Hungry Ghosts. Everything in the shop came to a halt. Techs looked up from the bowels of solid-body electrical guitar cavities, luthiers stopped luthering, administrative tasks were forgotten in a psychic wash of full-spectrum ambient ganglion white noise. But as soon as he'd begun, Chris realized what he was doing and stopped, gazing down at his fingers, appalled. We looked away, the pain of observing his embarrassment more then we could stomach. Life went on. Chris eventually moved, with his family, to Modoc, where he manages a small Community Center, catering to teens and veterans. We never heard surf music again.