We put one of the Carlo Robelli 12-string basses on lay-away with Sam Ash in Charlotte today (over the phone). We were going to wait, but I decided that I specifically wanted the bass that I had played. So we called Dave Vergato at the Charlotte Sam Ash. He's sort of become our designated contact over there, so whenever we're going to make a major purchase, we try to do it through him. No offense to the other guys over there, bit so far he's been the only one who treated us like people. Everyone else has either been apathetic to our presence or convinced that they could hard-sell us on something we were lookiing at (He latter usually loses interest when they realize that we won't be pushed into a sale). This is not a Sam Ash thing, but is pretty much the norm for music stores these days.

So, well, thanks Dave. We'll bring you our money from now on.

Okay. So I got off topic. I mostly wanted to mention the lay-away and express how excited I am that I'm going to be buying an interesting and very playable bass. Mara nixed the idea of laying away the Carlo Robelli fretless and 6-string, but I'm very cool with the 12-string bass. We'll get the rest later.