CHICAGO — Local Guitar Center employee Bridget Wolf carefully cut a fresh guitar strap from a rotating spit before serving it to an eager customer this afternoon, salivating sources reported.
“You want to make sure the strap is fully cooked and seasoned before you cut one off,” Wolf said. “Every morning we pile the raw straps onto the spit and apply a base layer of seasoning, which helps to alleviate shoulder chafing. Then they cook for about five hours, and we have at least three spits going at a time. Today’s flavors are lightning bolts, celtic symbols and Metallica logos. There’s also a load of caution tape straps and ‘Dark Side of The Moon’ prism straps in the back, but I try to save the lower-quality scraps for the teenage crowd that doesn’t know any better.”
Customer Jess Aaron said that they were surprised how involved the process could be.
“I thought straps were made in, I don’t know, a guitar strap factory. Not cooked to order,” said Aaron. “Apparently that’s always been the case, they’ve just finally decided to finally move the machines onto the sales floor. I like a nice AC/DC logo strap with extra strap locks wrapped in a chord. That’s the good shit. They won’t tell me what’s in the secret spice, but a friend said that it’s mostly lube with a hint of bassist tears.”
Guitar Center CEO John Maynard said that the company wants to make all of their stores more interactive.
“We’ve found that prospective customers are looking for a hands-on experience,” Maynard said. “Instead of selling sets of picks, we’re going to grate them right off the block until the customer says ‘when.’ Visitors can now take a tour of the cellar where we age our vintage gear, and personally pick out a guitar teacher from the tank. We’ll also want to sell green Orange amps before they’re fully ripe. Our goal is to give buyers a front row seat to the process.”
At press time, Wolf was seen inviting customers to the back of the store to watch a bass drum give birth to a bongo.