Is that a guitar in your pants or are you just happy to see me?

No, it turns out it was actually a guitar in the guy's pants.

The guitar-shaped bulge in Morgan Conatser's clothing tipped off a music store owner that there might be a crime in progress. Clifton Lovell, owner of Guitars and Cadillacs on U.S. Highway 71 in De Queen [Arkansas], was talking with a customer last week when he saw Conatser, 29, walking out of the store.

"I saw him walking out to his pickup truck and the bulges in his leather jacket. I said, 'Hey what have you got there,'" Clifton Lovell said.

He said Conatser, 29, replied, "Nothing."

Lovell pointed toward the unnatural shapes in Conatser's jacket and pants and said, "You've got something."

Conatser then removed a solid body electric guitar from his pants leg and from underneath his jacket.

I'd like to know how he managed to shove the guitar down his pants without anybody noticing. That can't be easy. And although the guy sounds like kind of a dumbass, perhaps the guitar theft was a brilliant ploy—misdirection:

With the guitar back in the store, Lovell didn't intend to call the sheriff's office. But then he discovered a wireless sound system was missing. Lovell called the Sevier County Sheriff's Department and gave a description of Conatser and his pickup.

Deputy Jeff Wahls called Conatser's father, who told Wahls how to find the house.

The deputy found Conatser at home, where Conatser went to his bedroom closet and retrieved the sound system, Wahls said.

"He made a statement saying he needed the property because he needed to make ends meet," Wahls said.

The article doesn't say whether or not Conaster snuck the sound system out of the store in his pants, but if he did, those pants have got to be nice and roomy. Maybe the authorities should have checked inside them, just to be sure he didn't have any drums or saxophones in there.