The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

I was cruising through the South End Pawn Shop the other day, scratching for musical gear the kids bought new and then had to sell to Jesse, the owner, for pennies on their dollar. The days of finding a vintage Gibson Mastertone pre-war banjo are so far back in the rearview, even the memory looks like week old roadkill, thanks to the internet and Antiques Roadshow. Takes about ten seconds to determine anything’s value. Jesse’s prices, though, are wildly inflated, but if you’re a good haggler, he’ll come down a long ways.

Me, I’m the kind who hates to go around on prices. Just put it on the tag and I’ll take it or leave it. In the course of my lifetime I’ll probably pay twice what everyone else does. But for peace of mind — and the lowering of blood pressures — I don’t care.

“How’s biz?” I asked Jesse who was perched predatorially on a stool behind a glass case. He looked like a hawk on a telephone line. Patiently waiting for the next mouse. “Couldn’t be better,” he smirked. I shrugged and he went on about the boyz hurrying in to sell their guns ‘before the Democrats takes em away’ and the boyz who wanted to buy guns ‘before the socialists outlaws em.’ “I shoulda voted Democrat. These guys are making me rich!”

I never really paid much attention to Jesse’s arsenal before, but I said show me what you got. He asked what I was looking for, pistol, semi-automatic, shotgun over and under, military assault rifle ….. “Whoa,” I said, “Jesse, I’m just an innocent bystander. Doing some research …”

Half an hour later I’m casually acquainted with enough armaments to take the City of Stanwood, just me and a few NRA pals. If Jesse has 200 firearms — and apparently my neighbors are stockpiling what he’s selling — the idea of disarming my het-up citizen friends seems more than a bit quixotic. They’re apparently a gun-totin, pistol packin, shoot from the hip pack of yahoos and by god, good luck talking down the barrel of a Smith and Wesson. You can probably tell a South Ender easy enough by his gun collection, but you sure can’t tell him much.

I walked out of Jesse’s with a big used tube amp for my electric guitar. Jesse said it was brought in by a kid from a heavy metal band who was dead broke. “Dems’ll probably ban these too before long,” he said as I lugged it to my truck. “Dial it up full volume, it’s potentially lethal.”

Right, it could kill my marriage, if nothing else.

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