fatrockstar . I did something.

A week ago, I was at the Northgate mall and encountered a Salvation Army giving tree. I'm feeling at a loss for the Christmas spirit this year and figured doing some charity might help me along. The fellow that greeted me at the volunteer table assured me that if it looked like I wasn't going to be able to purchase the gift once I'd taken a ticket that I could bring it back, but to avoid such a thing I should probably read the tickets carefully and choose one I could afford to fulfill.

I looked at all the tickets. Not a whole lot of greed going on. Most of the tickets were very specific, naming brands and toy titles. Some were generic -- my favorite of these was one for an 18-month-old girl: "Something noisy that blinks." While I'm all about noisy blinky things, I couldn't see myself buying one. Then I came across a ticket that hit close to home. Written in a juvenile hand, a 9-year-old boy asked for an "acoustic guitar and song book."

Rewind back to Christmas, 1984. I had been asking for over a year for an electric guitar, and expressing an interest in making music. The only people in my family who could afford such a thing, though, were my father and his parents, and my grandparents weren't about to encourage a child down the road of depravity through rock n' roll. So it was up to my daddy. Daddy had always played guitar, for as long as I could remember. I would be happy with one like his.

Did I get one? No. I got a dinky little 24-key Casio keyboard, kind of like the one over at homestarrunner.com. It sounded like crap, I didn't want to play it, and the opportunity to start early on my passion for music was lost. Why did my daddy get me such a crappy thing? "You have to learn music theory first." Fine. Enroll me in classes -- but the Casio? No wonder my next foray into music was marching band.

When I got my first real guitar more than 10 years later, I played it all the time. I loved it. A boyfriend with money to burn had bought me a crappy Peavy, but it sounded TERRIBLE and I never wanted to play it. The Takaminie was the poo. I still play it.

Back in present day, this Salvation Army ticket made me think back to my initial disappointment. How would my life have been different had I received a higher-quality instrument? Or at least received something similar to the one I asked for in the first place? Would I have joined the ranks of Debbie Gibson or Tiffany as 80's pop princesses? Would I have been part of the grunge revolution of the early 90's? What would a non-musician get this kid?

I sat on this ticket for over a week. I didn't know how I was going to pull off a guitar and a song book. Surely the music stores in my neighborhood had something suitable and affordable. If not, you can always buy a Yamaha for $70 (it comes with a nifty strap!) and a kid's book of guitar stuff. It's not that simple. I'm a cheapskate, so I fought with myself over it for a while. Just because a kid asks for something doesn't mean he or she will appreciate it, but to ask for it at all says something, doesn't it?

Worried, I called the Salvation Army representative in charge of that office and asked a hundred questions. Would my gift go to the appropriate child? How do they know, since no codes were written on the tickets? She explained everything to my satisfaction. The office that manages that gift tree is small, and they keep a master list of all gifts requested and the families they go to. I can even drop the gift off at their office at 95th & Greenwood if I like. Sounds good.

I checked American Music in Fremont, and their 3/4 size guitars started at $140. Gig bags at $30. Ouch. They had a package deal that came with the guitar, a book, a tuner, a video, and a strap for $170. I passed. $140 was the absolute MOST I was willing to spend, to be honest. I already figured the guitar would run almost that much. I moved on to Trading Musician on Roosevelt and found a slightly loved 3/4 size guitar for $100. Gig bags there started at $15. I played it and it sounded lovely. Rang like a bell. Throw in a pitch pipe and I was well under my spending threshold.

Now it's sitting here in my hobby room along with all the other gifts I've collected over the last couple of months. The only person I was really shopping for was Garret, but I managed to save myself some time and anxiety by running into a few gifts I had forgotten to order online. I'm proudest of that little guitar, though. Even if he plays it for a few weeks and forgets, it's still a good little guitar he can come back to later, and it won't be too small.

I feel pretty good about that.