Keller had the frets dressed and the neck set properly at a shop two towns over, which cost him two hundred and forty dollars on an instrument he paid a thousand for, and when my son asked him why, he said: “Because one day you’re going to be good enough to want it back, and I’m not going to be the reason it isn’t ready.”

Part Fifty-Three: What It Cost

I want to do a proper accounting, because I have read a number of these stories now and the ones that leave this part out are the ones that do the damage.

One Stratocaster, bought over two instalments in 2021 for twelve hundred and forty dollars, sold for a thousand.

Gone, permanently, and played on Sundays by somebody else.

One games console and nine titles, which had cost about four hundred and sixty dollars over three Christmases, sold for a hundred and eighty.