PSFOs (That's Piano Shaped Flying Objects, Ron!)

[Will Truitt]

This is in response to Ron’s very entertaining tale about piano aeronautics.

 

You will note, Ron, that I have begun  a new thread, rather than pile
kilobyte on kilobyte by directly replying to your offering.  I had further
hoped to avoid being called a wanton byte wastrel by sending this reply in
textese(R U gd?) but, the text messaging generation gap being such a great
divide on PTG forum, I feared for the safety of my family and a life of
continuing ostracism.  I don’t want to be between  a piano and a hard place.
If I were really conscientious, I would write nothing at all; but I don’t
have that much self control.  

 

My tale is really a trilogy, which I shall call, “Two Dork Clouds and a
Silver Lining”

 

Some years ago my wife’s best friend Jane wanted to clean out an unused
bedroom and redecorate it.  Of course, that meant Ye Olde Upright, which no
one had played in years, had to go.  To the dump, to the dump, to the dump,
dump, dump!”  Her brother Larry intervened, saying, “Wait, you can’t throw
that away, it’s a valuable piano!!  I’ll take it!”  We’ve always regarded
Larry as a few bricks short of a full hod.  Nonetheless, he hornswoggled one
of his buddies to help him.  Somehow they loaded the piano into the back of
a truck without ramps, dollies, and such.  They are driving through downtown
Laconia on their way to his house and were waiting at the stoplight on Main
Street.  The light changes, Larry puts the pedal to the metal, and the
lesson in physics begins.  Put Mass, Acceleration, Inertia, and a lack of
proper restraint together; and you can guess what follows –certainly not the
piano!  The piano didn’t quite accelerate with the same speed as the truck,
slid out the back, and went crashing down into the middle of the
intersection, laying on its back in a field of piano detritus.  Larry stops
the truck, he and his bud get out, stare at the piano for about ten seconds,
look at each other, and get in the truck and drive off without saying a
word.  The next day on the front page of the Laconia Citizen was a
photograph of the abandoned and broken piano looking like a beached whale in
the intersection.  The crime remains unsolved to this day, and the
perpetrators have never been caught.  

 

The second tale is connected to the local senior center, who were having an
large outdoor bash some distance away.  The brilliant idea was hatched to
bring the 5’ Henry F Miller runt grand to the festival for entertainment.
The guys who operate the Produce Truck for the local Community Action Food
Co-op offered to transport the piano.  They at least had a dolly and were
able to get the piano on its straight side onto the dolly.   I remain
impressed that they were able to get the piano through the single door with
all three legs and the lyre still attached without any damage.  Not having a
hydraulic gate, they horsed the piano up into the truck and rolled it down
to the cab end.  They closed the doors, got in, and started towards their
destination.  

 

You guessed it – they were sitting at a stoplight a block from the senior
center.  The light changes, he starts accelerating, and the grand slides
about 20 feet  from the cab end and smashes into the rear doors, breaking
all three legs and the lyre in the process.  

 

It being a produce truck, we can only surmise how much vegetable matter had
gotten wedged between their ears.  I’m guessing it was a lot.  

 

And now, the Silver Lining.  The house movers had brought the Chickering
quarter grand into the living room, set it up, and gone back out to the
truck to move other things.  They had left one fellow in there, who, being
the industrious sort, decided to move the piano to the other side of the
room by himself, dragging it across the half mile deep shag carpet.  

 

The bass leg broke first.  It dropped with a jolt onto the lyre, which held
on for about half a second before giving way.  When the bass side dropped
the 2 ½ feet to the floor (WHAM!!), three ribs and the soundboard broke.  

 

I was called in to survey the damage and give a report to the insurance
company.  Of course, this meant they paid for the installation of a new
soundboard, as well as the leg repairs.  I talked the customer  into
rebuilding the action and putting in a new pinblock, so the whole thing
turned into a soup to nuts rebuild for me ( I got the silver lining!)

 

A hundred thousand years ago, the animals would have killed and eaten these
people, and natural selection would have prevailed.  Instead, we continue to
dilute the gene pool.  These tales bring to mind part of Jamie Lee Curtis’
delicious diatribe against Kevin Kline’s bumbling character in A Fish Called
Wanda, “You’re so STUPID, you give Stupid People a BAD NAME!!”

 

Ron, I do not share your hopelessly optimistic and Pollyannaish view that
these pianos just want to Boost Some Big Air, sing “I’m FLYYYIIIINNNNGGGG”,
and go off to join Peter Pan and the Lost Boys.  Alas, I fear a darker
motive on their part – suicide.  Think what your state of mind would be if
you had been abandoned, neglected, abused, and locked up in a dark room for
decades!  It  could easily be regarded as catatonic.  Thus, they would see
no need for restraint.  In a single, terrifying moment of lucidity, you
would see all that your wretched life has been for the last 30 years, to be
followed only by a dark, decaying, and joyless future.   So wouldn’t you
take that leap at the first opportunity – and try to take a few of the
bastards with you?
. 

 

Will Truitt

 

 

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