In my early and very naive 20's I lived in a large apartment with a lot of different people, and we were in the habit of taking in "strays." One day those of us who were permanent and local residents came home from our assorted jobs to find one of the "strays" who had been with us for about 8 weeks (and who was a wonderful cook and cleaned up the house for us while we were at at work, etc., etc.) had disappeared with one of our cars, the expensive stereo system, my boyfriend's Les Paul, and a small PA system.

The police found the car a couple of days later in Huntington, about 60 miles from where we lived in Charleston. At the suggestion of the police, my boyfriend and I cruised the pawn shops in Huntington and soon saw his Les Paul displayed in the window of a downtown pawn shop. Fortunately for my boyfriend, he had the serial number of his guitar on file and could prove it was his. We don't think the pawnshop owner had knowingly accepted stolen goods, but since he had put out money for it, he was very reluctant to return it, and without clear proof that the Les Paul was Michael's, we would never have gotten it back.