Pianohyeswedid

The other day:

Katie says that she thinks it'd be cool to have a piano, since she hasn't had one for a very long time and she misses playing (or something to that effect). She even shows me a couple craigslist ads.

I find some more craiglist ads for pianos that are cheaper and closer. I send the OPs emails. I get some back. One, some keys don't work. Crossed it off the list. Two, it all works, just a bit out of tune. I give the girl a call, arrange a time to come look at it. She gives me her dad's number since she's going to be at work. I call Dennis, he says swing by at 4:30.

So we show up today in Baldwin City. Apparently he's recently shuttled off his 92-year-old mother to an assisted living joint, and they're looking to dump the piano (and an electric organ, and a rocking chair, but both were beyond the scope of reasonability). Katie tickles some ivories, everything works, looks good. We arrange a time--the upcoming Saturday--to come back with a truck to pick it up.

Katie calls her Truck Friend John (TFJ hereafter). TFJ is all, oh yeah that's cool, no problem, but hey look, I'm good to go right now, let's do this. We're about 20 minutes outside of town, we call Dennis back he says that's no problem. We roll up to the local grocer's to find some cardboard for padding. I find some interesting-looking sport drinks and snag a couple. We head up to the cashier and we both realize that neither of us has a debit card.

This is bad news, because neither of us have cash, nor do we have cheques. We start scheming. TFJ's already on his way so we can't go home then come back because that would just take too long. We decide that we will go back to the grocer's and volunteer to buy someone's groceries with our cards in exchange for cold, hard cash. It is a brilliant plan.

Cash in hand, we roll back to Dennis' mom's now-derilect duplex. The whole neighborhood has replaced the outdoor garage lights with alternating red-and-green bulbs. It's cute and festive. TFJ rolls up, we put the piano in the truck, I squish my finger but not too bad. It take a good 10 minutes to tie up the piano. Dennis helps; he's a really nice guy. Then TFJ's battery dies. We find this out when we try to leave. At this point the whole situation has gotten so ridiculous I am dying of laughter on the inside.

I give TFJ a jump, we say adios to Dennis, and we head back home. En route, Katie calls up The Guys, who are just finishing up dinner. They are just a couple minutes after us in arriving at our place. TFJ backs into the yard like a boss. The Guys, me, and TFJ unload the piano and we plop it inside. We'll rearrange the furniture later.

Mission accomplished, we open up the piano bench to view its contents. It's all learn-how-to-play books of Patsy Cline's greatest hits, 100 golden oldies, Christmas music, and a collection of WWII songs. We kick everyone out because we were hungry and needed some food, since our half-hour-long-trip-to-look-at-a-piano-then-eat-some-dinner took 2 hours without the dinner part.

Look, here's a picture of it set up:

Posted via email from BLOG.NATHANIELRAY