Worst field trip ever

In keeping with my idea of keeping Samson busy yesterday, I planned a little field trip to a guitar store I'd seen in one of the neighborhoods downtown. My office does some work with an internet design firm in the neighborhood, so I'd passed by the store but never really had the chance to peek inside.

Which, as it turns out, was unfortunate.

We cruised down to the store and entered only to find a really bad garage sale in a retail space. There were guitars, about 11 of them, scattered around the place in various stages of repair and/or sale. Likewise, there was a bass fiddle being worked on, a violin being restrung, and a big electric keyboard. And then just lots of random crap --- everything from framed pictures of Johnny Cash ($65) to used paperback editions of Greek tragedies.

Of course, I had Samson in one arm and his guitar (which is really a ukelele) in the other and so waited for someone to appear from the back. She did, eventually, only to inform me that the owner was across the street at the 7-Eleven getting something to drink. Mind you, I'd hyped this trip up with Samson as a "big surprise," and while I was technically correct, I was still hoping to salvage something out of it.

The man who arrived looked like a cross between a middle-aged Marlon Brando and George Steele. I asked him to tune the ukelele, which he did, and he then played Samson a song on it, which I thought was cool.

Unfortunately, that was not the end of it. He then reached, somewhat absent-mindedly into the bookshelf and pulled out a play and asked me if I'd read it. It was at this point where Brando, particularly as Kurtz with his copy of the Golden Bough handy, really came out.

Apropos of nothing, he began to talk about his career in community theater and his love of Greek plays. I'm not sure I can stress this enough: This guy loves Greek plays. And he was obsessed with demonstrating to me that despite the fact that he'd dropped out of school in the 10th grade, he was a scholar of Greek literature and was leagues ahead of the "so-called intelligentsia" who consistently mispronounce names like Agammemnon, Achilles, etc.

I endured, because there is no other word for it, a full fifteen minute disquisition on the idiocy of public school teachers and college professors, the folly of reading Chapman's translation of Homer instead of Pope's, and a whole lot of other stuff I can't even begin to describe, all of it dealing with ancient Greek poetry and drama. With a 23-month-old on my arm. And a now in-tune ukelele. In a store with no air conditioning.

In my movie life [note to anyone making a film of my existence, here's an episode where you can stretch the truth], I would have said "Look Herodotus, thanks for the tune-up, but can I go? You're making me want to drink hemlock."

Of course, I said nothing of the kind. Nope, instead I just gamely smiled and sought an exit with all the stealth of Theseus. Our moment came when somebody stopped to ask him a question, and I turned and practically flew like Daedalus (which I'm undoubtedly mispronouncing) down the hot sidewalk to our car.

Curiously enough, Samson didn't say a word the whole time. It wasn't until we got to the car that he said "Man. Talking. Loud." And then he sat back in his carseat and played his guitar as we drove away.