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It's a Trap!!


mowf

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This morning I had a very narrow escape, and even though the tale does not paint me in the best light I feel it's my duty to share with my fellow bass brethren in the hope that others may learn from my ignorance.

I had just changed the strings on my 1974 Jazz and was idly noodling and comparing it to my 1978 Jazz, which is to a casual observer identical in pretty much every respect. My wife, who rarely takes an interest in my basses, innocently asked:

"If you could only keep one of your basses, which one woud it be?"

I am ashamed to say, dear reader, that for whatever reason, (late night? Mind elsewhere?), I merely took this question at face value and failed to spot that it was OBVIOUSLY A TRAP!! Had I answered straight away then of course her immediate response would have been, "Then why the f**k don't you sell the others?", and rightly so.

Fortunately, and this is really only down to my being blessed with a supernatural inability to decide (or is it? Not sure), I spent so long dithering over the answer and then changing it four times, that I somehow proved the point that perhaps I do need more than one bass (I probably don't) and earned a reprieve to noodle another day. With whichever bass takes my fancy.

I hope that you may learn, from this cautionary tale, to always be on your guard. Even now, hours afterward, I get cold shivers just thinking how close I came to the edge of the mineshaft.

I invite my fellow Chatters to offer suggestions as to the perfect (polite) response.

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1 minute ago, hiram.k.hackenbacker said:

Which of course is ‘I’m not sure, do you have a favourite pair of shoes or a favourite handbag?’.

Not bad. My very first response was actually "I don't know, which of our children is your favourite?"

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Exactly! You have to bargain using terms your partner can understand. I tend to look at jewellery, handbags, shoes etc in “bass” units. Of course, no-one needs several basses, but neither do we need more than one change of clothes, but most people have a lot more than that, don’t they? That’s what I keep saying, anyway. And for goodness’ sake don’t recall how much that bass cost :)

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My missus hates me buying instruments as she thinks they clutter the place and are money that could have been spent elsewhere. Like many here I imagine, this has always made me wary of the new purchase, particularly since I’m now down to three electric basses, 2 Rics and a replica. This makes any non-Ric purchase a bit obvious, or so I thought.

So I was somewhat amused recently when I showed her a picture of a bass in the For Sale section (Hellzero’s W&T Zoid, a very visually unusual and distinctive instrument) saying how I’d really like one (sadly can’t currently afford it). She responded saying “haven’t you already got one of those?” Puzzled, I replied no, I hadn’t got anything like that. Then the penny dropped. The Zoid has a natural maple top. My Ric replica is natural maple. Apparently, that makes them the same. So all I have to do is make sure I get another bass in the same finish as one I already have and I’m ok. 😉

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Assuming you can in fact choose just one special bass over the others, then I would say she's got a point.

I guess it all depends on what else you would do with the money, if it's just to keep in the bank - then it's pointless to sell, you might as well keep your cash in nice guitars than in micro-digits on a clearing bank's computer.

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I realise that I  may be in the lucky minority but my Mrs doesn't mind me having loads of guitars as she realises its my hobby. In fact recently when I announced that I was selling one she was really surprised and asked was I sure?

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3 minutes ago, ubit said:

I realise that I  may be in the lucky minority but my Mrs doesn't mind me having loads of guitars as she realises its my hobby. In fact recently when I announced that I was selling one she was really surprised and asked was I sure?

This is the situation here.  I recently sold a Thunderbird as I was never realistically going to be using it and she tried her hardest to dissuade me from selling it.

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3 hours ago, 4000 said:

My missus hates me buying instruments as she thinks they clutter the place and are money that could have been spent elsewhere. Like many here I imagine, this has always made me wary of the new purchase, particularly since I’m now down to three electric basses, 2 Rics and a replica. This makes any non-Ric purchase a bit obvious, or so I thought.

So I was somewhat amused recently when I showed her a picture of a bass in the For Sale section (Hellzero’s W&T Zoid, a very visually unusual and distinctive instrument) saying how I’d really like one (sadly can’t currently afford it). She responded saying “haven’t you already got one of those?” Puzzled, I replied no, I hadn’t got anything like that. Then the penny dropped. The Zoid has a natural maple top. My Ric replica is natural maple. Apparently, that makes them the same. So all I have to do is make sure I get another bass in the same finish as one I already have and I’m ok. 😉

Never have that problem. Her money is hers to do with what she wishes. We each pay about the same for monthly bills and food, so as long as they are paid our money is our own to do what we each want.

On your final point, a mate of mine has 14 bicycles. All are road/race bikes and all are black. He finds it easy to introduce a new one with no arguments.

Edited by mikel
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This is quite true. Anyone that could answer the question easily could easily sell their others because they're not needed, and the only reason why the other basses are kept is ONLY because people want to own them. People like to own things. People keep basses, ornaments, pens, figurines, and so on because they want to own them for the sake of owning them.

 

It's how I get rid of anything when I'm thinning the herd of things that I may have too many of. I may mass buy things up to a point, BUT only for the purpose of learning from them. Once I've learnt from them and have decided on what I like and don't like, then they have outlived their usefulness. I then sell everything until I have the minimum number. I'm really quite ruthless like that.

I always ask myself the question: "would I be happy if this [item] was the only one I had?? If the answer is no. I sell it because it means that I don't need it, but I only think I want it. Honestly, before selling it I think that I will miss it. Some things seem so beautiful and precious, but it's usually an illusion. In reality, after I've sold them, I never think about them even once!

I see the bass as a tool to achieve something, so I didn't answer with just 1 bass , but 5.  Those 5 basses include:  a 4 string fretted and fretless, 5 string fretted, and a 6 string fretted and fretless. Brand, colour, electronics are unimportant, but weight, balance, and comfort are.

 

My ultimate aim is to always get down to owning only one of whatever it is. I may be related to Marie Kondo.

 

 

 

Edited by TheLowDown
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Thus is one of the many reasons why I’ve never married or been in a long term relationship, I’d find it very difficult to accept someone attempting to tell me what I couldn’t spend the money that I get up and go to work for on. 

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4 hours ago, hiram.k.hackenbacker said:

Which of course is ‘I’m not sure, do you have a favourite pair of shoes or a favourite handbag?’.

Haha excellent answer. I would have said which is your favourite wardrobe as we all know significant others have the ability to fill them at the same rate employees experience their employer's server space is filled with data causing periodic IT outages!!! 

But of course it may not have been a trick question - she may just have been interested - a good answer may have been 'I'm not sure which is your favourite' - I'd wager it would have been unlikely to be a sunburst or anything else resembling brown in colour (my experience is other halves have considered these boring - in fact the greatest volume of positive even gushing admiration from the fairer sex in general has been for a dark orange coloured MM Bongo or for a coral red (pink) MM Stingray Classic!! 

Edited by drTStingray
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5 hours ago, mowf said:

Not bad. My very first response was actually "I don't know, which of our children is your favourite?"

Mmm, I maybe mistaken, but I think there maybe a few laws in existence preventing the sale of children.

Handbags though! I did not know they could cost as much as a bass 😲.

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2 hours ago, mikel said:

Never have that problem. Her money is hers to do with what she wishes. We each pay about the same for monthly bills and food, so as long as they are paid our money is our own to do what we each want.

On your final point, a mate of mine has 14 bicycles. All are road/race bikes and all are black. He finds it easy to introduce a new one with no arguments.

We’re the same in that her money is free to do with as she chooses, she’d just sooner mine wasn’t spent on basses. 😂

I was in a guitar shop a few years back and the salesman was telling me about a regular customer who started out with a Squier Strat in a particular finish. After a while he upgraded to a Mexican in the same finish. Some time after, it was a US, same finish, and so on. When asked why it was always the same finish, he said “so the wife can’t tell”.😂
 

 

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