I've always known Beloved was fond of his gold fender strat, but I've never troubled myself with the question of which of us he would save if the house was burning down.
Until last night.
While walking across the front room yesterday evening I caught my foot in the guitar lead and knocked the axe in question off its stand so it went flying and landed on my foot.
While I shrieked in pain, Beloved leaped across the room and picked up his poor precious baby. He cradled the guitar protectively in his arms and peered solicitously along its neck. One of the strings had broken and hung limply from the fretboard. Beloved struck a tentative chord. The guitar made a pitifully cacophonous noise, a bit like a mewling kitten.
For the next hour Beloved refused to look at or speak to me. Instead he fetched a screwdriver, a soft cloth and a can of furniture polish, and proceeded to administer a full medical on his poor bruised guitar. The strings were carefully removed. The fretboard was lovingly polished. A panel was unscrewed from the back of the guitar, revealing three mysterious springs. Beloved then attempted to remove the spring from inside the lid of the spray can of furniture polish without success. Luckily he turned out not to need it, as all three springs in the back of the guitar were apparently intact. He then carefully placed the stringless but now very sparkly axe on its stand, and pointedly kicked the leads and wires out of the way of any stray clumsy feet that may happen to be passing.
Throughout this entire procedure I was rubbing my poor bruised toes, emitting faint whimpers of pain, to which Beloved was completely oblivious.
Several hours later, Beloved decided to graciously accept my apology for tripping over a wire in the semi darkness that was sprawled right across my path, and grudgingly acknowledged that I might not have knocked his guitar over on purpose.
I look forward to a full medical update on the wellbeing of the Love Axe when I get home this evening.
As for my toes, they are much better, and only slightly sore, so the good news is that I will be able to wear heels again.
Although possibly not in the front room.
xxx
