the piano saga

i still remember it hurting…

…the summer before i started my sophomore year in high school my neighbors moved. not a big deal – their daughter wasn’t THAT cute. but the dad had a project the mom had vetoed making the trek up to chicago with them – a 1920’s upright piano he had started refinishing.

sold it to my Mom for fifty bucks.

even though he was just across the street moving that 500lb beast sucked – across the street, up the curb, the sidewalk was easy, but then up the stoop and into (what was then) the living room (which is now my office and, ironically, my desk is exactly where Mom set up said piano). there it sat, so she could practice church choir bits at home, plinking awkwardly away at it’s original ivory (extremely out of tune) keys.

a couple years after she passed (in 1996, the day after i met kramer, but most of you know those stories so i won’t elaborate) i moved it out of the living room and into the dining room across from the table, relocating the “knick-nack shelf” (which is now my bar and humidor, as it had been for my dad, at least the bar part) to the living room where it sat as a tall shelf and was never played. in 2004 when the living room became an office for me & alex i tried to sell the piano in the austin chronicle for $250, which seemed fair at the time. i had a few people make the ride out to lockhart, but nobody made an offer after seeing it, so again it sat, collecting dust.

lots of dust.

after we cleaned out grandma’s house and i got the buffet i really wanted to sit in my dining room, i needed the piano gone. now we had craigslist (which i guess we had back in 2004, but nobody used it) so i put it on their for $100, but with the exception of the “remove your advert…cashier’s check” scams i’ve bitched about on here i got nothing…and it sat on there for six months or so. a month ago i marked it down to $75, and it still sat. so after my success moving out some of jen & alex’s stuff on craigslist on wednesday (posted around 3:00 in the afternoon, money in hand by 8:00) i marked the piano down to $50.

the next day i got an email at 9:21 asking about it – a couple from houston, only in town for the day. we went back and forth all day, and at one point he was gonna give the money to shane (they were in his town for a traffic ticket) to “hold it” and come back for it at thanksgiving, but after discussing it with the ufc she suggested we forgo our evening in favor of me being home to get this beast finally gone, so i told the guy my estimated time home of 11:00 (which he said was “waaaaay too late”) would now be 5:00 or so. he said “perfect” and that they would head my way around six…

…he and his wife need to work on their communication.

what i found out when they arrived around 10:45 or so (eleven too late my ass) was they were going around the area getting all kind of wood stuff to refinish and the wife had always wanted a piano, but set her limit at fifty bucks. it was kismet. so, after a lot of heavy lifting in the cold between me and the husband we were good to go. i turned off the porch light as i walked in at 11:30.

still odd to see it gone – but i’m really looking forward to this next week when the buffet leaves the office and things FINALLY come together in here!