guitar center

I walked into Gui­tar Cen­ter, know­ing ex­act­ly what I need­ed to buy. 

A mini, midi key­board. I scoped it out and took it to the reg­is­ter. I al­ways try to get in and out of there as quick as pos­si­ble, as it’s one of my most dread­ed errands. 

I wait­ed in line for­ev­er, key­board in hand, while the sweet em­ploy­ee en­dured some heavy gear talk with a long haired, mid­dle aged man. 

At the oth­er reg­is­ter, a woman that I’d got­ten into a fight with and walked out on, dur­ing a past er­rand, was ring­ing up an­oth­er cus­tomer. Slow­ly. She and I had both been wear­ing blue eye­lin­er, and I haven’t worn it since. I said a lit­tle prayer ask­ing for her trans­ac­tion to take longer. 

My prayer was an­swered, and the sweet-seem­ing guy in­vit­ed me to be next. 

I moved for­ward and he re­al­ized that his reg­is­ter wasn’t work­ing. We walked down some stairs, with a met­al ban­is­ter held up by met­al bars, to an­oth­er reg­is­ter. We passed by two lit­tle girls, play­ing with dolls, clear­ly wait­ing for their dad to fin­ish his gear talk. 

As we passed, I heard them say ex­cit­ed­ly, “She looks just like Hol­ly!” My name is Hol­ly, so I felt con­fused, but then thought that I must have mis­heard them. As I stood at the reg­is­ter, the girls stared at me through the bars, whis­per­ing, loud­ly, “She re­al­ly looks ex­act­ly like Hol­ly!” They con­tin­ued. I looked around, try­ing to see if there was any­one else near­by that might be Holly. 

The check­out process was end­less, be­cause it is Gui­tar Cen­ter and they al­ways ask a mil­lion ques­tions. The girls kept their eyes on me, say­ing over and over how I look like Hol­ly. I tried to give them a lit­tle wink and smile, to let them know that I AM Hol­ly. I’m not sure if they understood. 

Af­ter run­ning my cred­it card, the ma­chine glitched, and start­ed show­ing ran­dom sym­bols on the screen. I had to go on­line, on my phone, and make sure that the trans­ac­tion hadn’t gone through. 

The sweet em­ploy­ee led me back up the stairs, back past the girls, who were still say­ing my name over and over, like some strange dream. 

At the next reg­is­ter, I was fi­nal­ly able to pay. Then I left.

 

—hol­ly solem

Flom­mist Hol­ly Solem is a singer/songwriter, mod­el, ac­tress and writer known for her work on Amazon’s orig­i­nal se­ries Hand of God, as well as play­ing, tour­ing and writ­ing with nu­mer­ous bands and artists. Copy­right © 2021–23 Hol­ly Solem. Pic­tured: Still Life with a Gui­tar (de­tail), 1913.

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