Coffee Serendipity

[David Boyce]

So today for the second time in 23 years I spilled coffee in the customer's 
home.

And in spectacular style. The cup was only a third full, sitting on a 
coaster on top of the piano (bad, I know) and I knocked it backwards against 
the wall. The remaining coffee in it spread over the wall in an apalling arc 
of unimaginable dimensions. To paraphrase Lady Macbeth's "Who'd have thought 
the old man had so much blood in him", "Who'd have thought the old cup had 
so much coffee in it".  Paint with that coverage would be phenomenally 
economical!  Three cups o' that coffee coulda done the whole house!

But it worked out OK.  The piano, a 1930s Kemble bought recently by my 
customer, had had large sticky labels stuck on the keys. The husband had 
managed to get the labels off, but all the "sticky" was left on the keys, 
quite disgusting and unplayable. My recently-discovered nail polish remover 
technique didn't work, as it tended just to dissolve the gunk into the key 
top.  So I was thinking in terms of stuff for removing tarry deposits from 
car paintwork, which I'd have to go home to get. But then when I spilled the 
coffee, the lady brought in a bottle oif "Wizz Oxy-action fabric stain 
remover" to clean the wall with (which, happily, was painted with washable 
emulsion paint).  I tried the Wiss on the sticky gunk and it worked.

So all ended well, but I've larned my lesson. No more coffee on the piano, 
even if, as in this case, the owner puts it there.

Best regards,

David.