Music Store Showdown

I was at the music store. I went to look at bass amps but as usual I was browsing everything. There was some older dude with long black hair in a pony tail playing lounge-type guitar music. Those kind of guys always seem to be there, just playing and showing off and providing a good vibe for the store. Anyways, there were some kids there who must have been renting band equipment or something and they were watching the guy play. When he finished a song they clapped. I noticed a tattooed guy with a shaved head watching too. He didn't seem too impressed though.

I was over in the PA section of the store when I heard it start. The bald dude had plugged in a guitar and was starting to shred pretty hard and was drowning out ponytail's lounge garbage. I thought that was pretty sweet, though I'm not really a fan of shredding. Then I hear a second guitar start shredding. I look over and there's ponytail fighting back with some licks of his own. Apparently he was a master of several styles. Both of them are being reasonably loud and many of the other shoppers are wandering over to watch. I'm wondering if the employees are going to say anything but I notice a few of them standing to the side grinning and watching contentedly.

The battle is getting pretty good, baldy and ponytail are kind of taking turns now trying to show each other up as soon as they get a chance. Then one employee comes marching in and I think he's going to shut them down. But he doesn't. He grabs a guitar too and plugs it in. Now there's three of them going at it. I think it was baldy that first turned up his volume to try to come out on top of the sonic battle field. The other two follow and the show is suddenly really loud. Some people watching start plugging their ears and moving away a bit. The employee is killing the other two. He's one of those heavy metal dudes that never made it and decided to sell guitars instead. In the field of shredding he is unmatched. The other guys can't be serious about shredding in the same way.

Baldy realizes he's being shown up and cranks up his amp a bit to compensate. Things are getting intense and ponytail can admit that he can't compete and he bows out, literally. The employee has to boost his amp now to keep up. He made the mistake of choosing a smaller amp, so he really has to max out to keep up with baldy's huge amp. So they're going for a few bars and baldy is choking bad. Suddenly there are some crackling noises. The employee's amp is sparking and starts to smoke. He notices pretty quickly and pops the power off. Baldy seems kind of sheepish now and turns off his amp too. Now there's just the employee guy there looking at his smoking amp. It seemed like a good time to wander over to another part of the store to look at something else. The show was over.