Coffee Serendipity

[Will Truitt]

Your coffee spill brings to mind the saying, "GO BIG OR GO HOME"....

Will Truitt

-----Original Message-----
From: pianotech-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:pianotech-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf
Of David Boyce
Sent: Monday, September 29, 2008 4:16 PM
To: Pianotech List
Subject: Coffee Serendipity

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.