Anticipation is at an all time somber mood on this rainy Tuesday. The customers have waned from the usual afternoon crowd to just a fews people stopping in to buy small accessories for their instruments or lightning equipment. The stage is looking like a mix of instruments but it seems not entirely sure what the purpose of them is. The stage seems unprepared for the eight bands that will stomp their way through a showing on Sunday, but yet hopeful to make it out of the whole ordeal in one piece.

The bass drum of the five piece drum set that is still sitting on the stage still has the jacket from some unknown person in it, dulling the sound to a muffled thud when its foot petal is touched. The one keyboard sits contemplating the meaning of the words "mixer" and "sound systems." The three microphones are yawning, trying to wake themselves through the dreary day. Finally the Orange, yes they are that pigmentation as well, speakers are clustered together for what I assume to be warmth or at least for the pleasure of each other's company. I have yet to see the orange speakers fight unless it's over who gets to be plugged into when someone wants to try out an electric guitar or bass. They're always pushing and shoving trying to grab onto the cord out of the customer's hands. I just sit back and roll my eyes, it's not like they are going to be bought by the customer, at most they are just the showcase for the guitar.

But looming over us, advertised in our windows, on our counter in little flyer format, and on our mirror in back of the main counter, is the Mithosfest 3 concert. Can I even really call it a concert? After all it's not really a full blown concert with front row tickets and groupies galore, oh wait... I forgot, groupies come to every gig no matter when or where. On the matter of tickets, I've been very sure to tell every customer what the cost it: seven dollars in advanced (ie you pay now, you get a better deal) and nine at the door. I've already asked the cruel, heartless marketing man if he'll take excuses why someone doesn't have their tickets at the door. He said no, my heart goes out to those who accidentally forget to bring their tickets. Be sure to bring them or you're going to be paying for a sixteen dollar show.

The store seems quiet, the steady beat of the customer track picks ups for a few minutes, but we all know that Sunday is coming. Even the customers are getting excited for the show, I can tell. Their eyes keep wandering up to that bright yellow advertisement hanging on our mirror interested in what bands might be playing and what their styles are. I can almost see the mental shuffle of events that they have to do in their daily lives in order to make room for the concert.

This should be one of the best times that I've ever had while working at any job. I've really never had this much fun while working for a company. Alan and Mike are one of the best teams that I've ever worked with. I thank that I had the honesty to walk into this store with absolutely no knowledge of music or how to play an instrument. But its been pretty rewarding all around, so I guess it wasn't such a bad gamble. Adona Music will be the person who jumps head first into the thrill and danger of having something so fast paced and heavy.

In life, there are hard choices that each of us have to make during our lives. Alan recently had to pick between two very bad choices over a used 1996 Les Paul Gibson guitar. He traded a new Michael Kelly Patriot Custom in order to receive this Les Paul Gibson. The choice, unfortunately, was not about the trade but what happened over an Ebay auction.

Tuesday, May 12th, 2009, Mike checks our Ebay responses for the 1996 Les Gibson guitar. We'd already gotten a thousand dollar bid on the guitar and the first response was a guy from Austrila looking to see if we could mail it to him. However, the second response was a very sour note on our hopeful moods that this 1996 Les Paul Gibson. 'It's a fake,' proclaimed the Ebayer, 'there's three screws on the headstock, there should be two.' Mike and I looked at each other after we read the list of impurities and sins that our Les Paul Gibson was being accused of having.

'We can prove our guitar is a normal Gibson, after all the guy we traded it from stated that he had sent it to Gibson and had it checked to be a real one!' I declared at the sight of the condemning comment. So our quest began, we started looking at pictures of regular Gibson guitars. There were a few things that the Ebayer had stated that were counterfeit but they were on real Gibson guitars, we felt assured with righteous indignation that our guitar was a real one. That was until we started looking through the Gibson's news post about counterfeit guitars that were being made and sold from dealers in China. Fake Gibsons vs Real Gibsons

Mike even went so far as to research the serial number. Yes, the serial number is to a 1996 Les Paul Gibson, but the place it was made was a factory that only made acoustic guitars. This 'Les Paul Gibson' is an electric guitar.

It was a most unfortunate finding, our guitar was most definitely a fake. We even went through uncovering truss rod cover and pot cover, both were identical to the pictures on the Gibson's website. We found ourselves at a crossroad, we already had a bid on this 1996 Les Paul 'Gibson' guitar, but we didn't want to sell a fake to an unsuspecting customer. Those were the two choices: either lose money or lose our reputation as a good seller.

Alan struggled with the decision. But in the end, he decided that is was better to lose money than to sell something that we know as being fake to an unsuspecting customer. That's think kind of store keeper that I appreciate working for, the one who weights being honest over making money.