Hi All,  The following story is true, the names have been changed
to protect the innocent.

It was back in 1976 and I working part time for Radio Shack while
looking for a full-time job.  My manager came into the store all
excited because he just ordered a rebuilt player piano.  He said
it only cost 3,000 dollars and it would arrive in two days.  I was
stunned, to say the least, when I heard the price, but he insisted
it was a great deal.  He told me he saw a player piano at a friend's
house and how relaxing it was to sit at the piano, pumping out a tune.

It then hit me that my manager rented a small room in a private home
in an expensive neighborhood.  I asked him if he had checked with his
landlord to see if he could bring in a player piano.  He called his
landlord several times and after crying real tears the landlord said
okay!  The agreement was he could keep the player piano in the living
room but it was only to be played when the landlord was not home.

A few days later I get a call at the store from my manager saying he
will be late for work because the piano came.  Several minutes later I
got a frantic call telling me the men left and the piano is now sitting
on the lawn.  It seems the piano would not fit through any of the doors
of the house.

I told my manager to call one of our steady customers, who was in home
construction.  The man went right over to the house and offered to open
up the door opening and move the piano in right away.  The cost of the
job was about 200 dollars.  The man told my manager to get permission
from his landlord and he would start right away.

Several hours later my manager came in looking like his mother died!
He went to the back room and closed the door.  Several times when
I tried to telephone out of the store to check credit card numbers,
I found him pleading with someone on the line.

After an hour or so he came out of the back room.  Instead of being
sad he was laughing to himself.  "I bought a player piano to relax, but
it won't fit through the door and now I can't widen the door opening".

I asked if the landlord knew the opening would be re-closed.  The
landlord claimed a permit was needed to do the work, and he did not
want the door to be opened up a second time when the piano was moved
out in the future.

I made several good suggestions in which my manager would offered
to pay money up front for the future opening of the house, but the
landlord held tight and the piano remained on the front lawn.  I told
the manager to move the piano to a neighbors garage because we were in
for rain.  He told me the people who delivered the piano covered it
with canvas before they left.

I then asked him if he ever went camping in the rain; I told him
canvas always leaks over a period of time.  My manager started calling
the company who sold the piano and, after the credit card company got
involved, a deal was struck.

It started to rain; the piano got ruined and my manager paid to have
piano sent back.  The way it worked out he would have been better off
wheeling the piano out to the curb for the junk man.

Three thousand four hundred dollars later he had nothing to show for
his trouble except a credit card bill.  When he called the piano
company they offered to rebuild the piano or to ship it back.  A few
weeks later he got a check from the company for some of the parts they
were able to salvage.

'Til next time

John Conrad Kleinbauer
Kleinbauer@juno.com