"Excuse me sonny," said the eldery woman to the clerk at the large New York City Music Store, "Can you help me?"

"Sure" the young man replied, somewhat surprised to see someone of the woman's age in the store. "How can I help?"

"Well my grandson has always wanted to play the guitar and I want to buy him something, some music he would enjoy."

The salesclerk, thrilled with his own clever idea quickly replied. "How about this, ma'am?" He holds out a CD entitled The Best Songs For Playing Air Guitar, complete with a large bright orange sticker saying Free Air Guitar with Purchase. "It has songs from Jimi Hendrix, Stevie Ray Vaughn, BB King, and so on," he said.

The grandmother takes the CD from him, looks at it and says, "Perfect. I'll take it. Now where's the free guitar?"

The young man, thinking she is joking, laughs and begins to take the disc back from her. She doesn't let go. "Where's my guitar?" she says again, louder and obviously perturbed.

"Ma'am," the salesclerk says, "There is no guitar. It's kinda like a joke." She is staring, no, glaring at him now.

"Look," he said, "This is an air guitar." And he began strumming wildly in front of him, making what he thought were rather good distorted guitar noises. He stopped and looked at her, expecting her to finally understand.

Instead, she says, "Sonny, I don't know who you are trying to fool. Do you think I am stupid or something? You didn't have any guitar in your hand." And with that she threw the CD at him and stormed out of the store.

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