Flabbergasted! I've been a huge fan of Mike Watt since picking up the Minutemen's
What Makes a Man Start Fires? album back in '83, and have lusted after the Mark II version of his bass since it came out. I tried to buy one from Chicago Music Exchange early this year, but someone beat me to it. Then a couple months ago, I saw one in the TB Classifieds, but because I'd bought another bass after the CME deal fell through, I felt I needed to sell one first.
My fantastic, ever-patient wife paid attention to all of my nattering on about this stuff, and took covert action. She created an account on TB, messaged the seller and explained the situation (pointing out that I had liked his FS post), and bought the bass! Huge thanks to
@labeledbass for trusting my wife's good intentions, being an all-around excellent seller and helping her conceal the fact that this deal took place right after she asked me more about this model.
Two things I haven't mentioned yet (thanks for reading this far). One, the bass got delivered to our apartment building as I was leaving the lobby to meet my wife in the driveway--I went out one door, the box went in the other. My wife was watching and holding her breath.
Two, she got a promotion and a substantial raise, and the first thing she did was go out and buy me a bass.
It was sitting in a wrapped box in our place for 2 months, but I thought it just had to be something else--we get each other nice gifts, but nothing at this price level! Needless to say, I was blown away when I opened up the box. And the bass not only looks great, it sounds and plays even better. Yes, I'm extremely lucky! (Sorry guys, she doesn't have a sister.)
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Thanks for the string advice that you shared with her and posted here, it's extremely helpful. Also, great job on cleaning up the bass, I agree that it's in superb condition! I spent a couple hours with it today, it's tough to put down. I'm mainly a long-scale guy, but actually started with a medium-scale hollowbody back in the day, so this feels a bit like a return to my roots. Although I'm 6'5", the neck feels really comfortable and not cramped to me. And the tones are different enough (yet not hugely different) in the three switch positions to make them all usable, as I discovered when playing along with my band's demos.
