3 excuses to go to the guitar store you can (usually) get away with

Guitar stores are very much like toy stores, because there’s a whole lot of fancy, shiny things combined with the fact that pretty much nothing in there is needed for day-to-day living. But we go anyway.

Non-musician types don’t understand why we always go into the guitar store even though we’ve already bought everything we need and have no solid reason to go in there. But it’s pointless to try and explain to the non-musician why we do it, so you need some excuses in your arsenal just for them.

Here are 3.

“I’m meeting up with a friend there because he wants my opinion on X”

X can be anything musically related that the store carries. Replace X with “Fender Bass” or “microphone” or whatever else you can think of.

If later on after you get back you’re interrogated about whether you actually met up with the friend or not, just say the friend never showed up but decided to stay in the store anyway just to check out some stuff.

“I need to pick up some warranty paperwork”

If you bought anything new from the store in the last 90 days, this is a good excuse to use, but obviously it can’t be used too many times or else the jig is up.

“I need to get a trade-in value on X”

X is something you already own. Of course, you have no intention of selling X, but it’s good enough of a reason to go to the guitar store because when you tell the non-musician this tidbit of info, they may believe you’re actually trying to make money instead of spending it.

If you use this excuse, get the actual value of your gear, because you will be pestered for the info by the non-musician later.

What excuse(s) do you use to go to the guitar store?