The first hurdle I face is where to begin. I must find a way to balance both the classic tales of skull duggery with the never ending barrage of new What the Fuckisms.

OK, how about a note on color choices?

Electric guitars often come in a few different colors. . .actually many more as of just a few years ago. Why? To offer more options to the consumer? NOPE.
To aid in the visual identification of models available? WRONG. They call it Auto-Order or perpetual inventory.
In short, let's say the store decides to carry a single model of shit indonesian guitar. (NOT a comment on indonesians in general, but your guitars really suck)
Well, a perpetual inventory system will automatically order one of each color to provide a selection - not bad so far, the three options are red white and black.
Unfortunately somewhere along the way the Shit indonesian manufacturer (under contract with a US or Japanese Corporation) realize that lots of places use a similar inventory system.
In a stroke of marketing genius they see that it doesn't matter how many guitars the retailler sells . . . just how many the retailler buys "automatically"
So . . . . every new model becomes an automatic sale - add a color send one to every retailler, Maple fingerboard instead of rosewood - send one (in each color) to the retailler.
3 guitars that suck just became 8. It gets worse limited: editions, pickup options, gloss vs satin finishes, it's all a scam!
Get this - at the end of the model year they discontinue several colors and add at least as many new ones.
They just keep sending those shit indonesian guitars.

Any idea what happens to the puke yellow thing you sent me last year with the 3 humbuckers and the floyde bridge?

ITS STILL ON THE FUCKIN WALL! Surprise!

It goes down 2 ways - either A) The customer wants a discount on the instock model because it's a discontinued model
or B)The customer wants a color that is discontinued and not available. This is the beginning of a huge saga of calling around to find a store in the chain that still has one in stock.

Finally the guitar will arrive - "this is brand new right?", "I don't know about this color", "do you think you could find me another one?
"Bring it in and I'll choose between them."

I typically wash my proverbial hands at this point. Even if I see 3 more in the local area my answer is No.
" Yeah, but I when I told you to bring in an orange-red guitar, I was hoping it would be more red and less orange."

and my internal response is

"when I took this job it was to work with artists not chodes",

Did Shakespear whine about the color of his quill?
Something even the average redneck knuckledragger can comprehend -

Jeff Gordon doesn't care what color his car is - as long as the stearing works.

You don't hear what color the guitar is on the album (and you can change the cover in photoshop)
Just buy the damn guitar and get your ass into the woodshed. While you're in there be sure to play with the band saw.
There you go! Is that the color red you were hoping for? Looks great! sounds even better!

Wow! It felt great to get a few drops of the venom out.
Sadly, I didn't even get to tell you about the Blind guy we call "Mr. Peepers".
Don't worry I'm not going anywhere and he's not getting off the hook that easy.