When I was a kid, we hid our bottle of vodka below the keyboard of
our upright pedal Stroud.  We could get pretty drunk at the piano and
Mom thought we were just making music.  We loved Ching Chong, but had
no idea what it was about.

One day Mom's friend, who'd been a stripper in New Orleans when she
was young, was visiting.  She was pedaling "Ching Chong" when suddenly
she called out, "Lou-iseeee, come down here!".  Mom came downstairs.

"Louise, did you know this song is about an opium den?"  They flipped
the piano from Play to Reroll and back again -- Mom was aghast!   Then
somehow the bottle of Smirnoff tipped over and got caught behind the
pedals and <smash!> it broke against the bass end of the plate.

At first Mom and her friend didn't know what happened but then came
the telltale aroma and our gooses were cooked.  Mom forgot about the
"Ching Chong" roll and said to her 14-year-old son (me), "Don't let me
ever catch you doing this again!"  So, of course I didn't.

After that I kept the vodka safely in the back of the Victor talking
machine where it couldn't get broken, or found.  I stopped drinking
when I turned 21; it got me in too much trouble.

Bruce Grimes