The story of the shitar

I got a new couch last Friday. I love it. The whole thing reclines. It gives "couch potato" a whole new dimension.

This story is not about the couch.

It's about what I had to go through to get it.

The couch was being delivered that afternoon. In preparation, my wife and I moved our dogs upstairs so they would be out of the way when the delivery men came. We have four dogs. None of them are very big. Three of them spend their days in crates while the wife and I are at work, both for their sake and the sake of everything we hold dear. So on Friday morning before work, I carried three crates upstairs to our back room, put the dogs in, said goodbye and went to work.

Our back room is our multi-purpose room. It's where we keep our computers, our exercise equipment and, yes, my guitar stuff. In one corner of the room, I have my amp underneath an old end table with my computer and assorted crap on it (it actually looks like it's meant to be used that way) next to a dual guitar stand with one guitar facing back toward the wall and another facing forward. That day, I had my beloved Strat on the stand facing outward. I lined up the three crates in front of the guitar area along the wall (actually a closet door) as that was the only place in the room that had enough real estate to hold them all.

It turned out to be my fatal mistake.

You see, sometime during the day, one of my dogs - my 6-year-old female Westie - decided to take a dump in her cage. To be more precise, the dump decided to pour out of my Westie, partly in her cage and partly on the floor.

What happened next I could only imagine. I don't know if she also got sick to her stomach and vomited (I almost did when I walked up the steps and smelled it) or if she tried to cover up her mess by eating it and then threw it up, but whatever happened caused a mess of epic proportions. Her cage was filled with a thick, gelatinous brown goo, covering her blanket and most of her hind quarters. There was a sizable brown stain on the carpet. Like dogs tend to do when they have something wet on them, she must have tried to shake it off of her. There were brown splashes on the closet doors, on the mat under the workout bench and, to my horror, all over my guitar stuff.

I couldn't believe it.

My dog shit on my Strat!

The cleanup took two hours. I got to the guitar stuff last. I cleaned the Strat first. It had splashes below the tremolo continuing diagonally up and to the left. The strap had a few drops on it, too. I then cleaned the cords, the wah pedal and the front screen of my amp. I didn't notice anything else. But when I got ready to practice that evening, I put my Strat away.

I just couldn't bear to play it. When I touched it I got an "ick" feeling all over. I felt like I was touching shit. Maybe it was PTSD after what I walked in to that afternoon, but I had to take a break from it. I started calling it my shitar. I really had doubts as to whether I would ever be able to play it again, and that says a lot. This is my favorite guitar. If the apocalypse were on its way and I only had time to grab one guitar, it would be my Strat. There's no way I could sell it, but I didn't want it to sit in its case and collect dust.

Thankfully, time heals all crap.

I took it out yesterday for the first time. I got some initial heebie-jeebies when I started playing it, but they slowly went away. I still examine it when I pick it up to make sure I didn't miss any splashes, but I play it. Some day I'll forget all about the shitar experience and it'll just be my Strat again.