I am a piano and organ salesman. Yes, I’ve heard all the jokes.

A lady comes into the store and proceeds to play (badly) every new piano we have.

Customer: *Loudly proclaiming* “None of these new pianos are any good! They’re all junk!”

Me: “Ma’am, these are Steinways, one of the world’s greatest pianos. I don’t see what the problem is.”

Customer: “My piano at home is much better; I can sing along with it. I can’t sing with these!”

I’m a bit perplexed. Can’t sing along with a new piano? Then, it hits me.

Me: “Ma’am, when’s the last time you had your piano tuned?”

Customer: “It’s never been tuned in all the years I’ve had it! It doesn’t need it!”

The piano had uniformly detuned over the years — not an unusual occurrence in our very dry climate — instead of certain strings detuning.

I offered to set her up with an appointment with our tuner, but she just said, “NO!” and stomped out of the store, complaining about how all our pianos were junk.

In 1980, I was working in a music store as a piano and organ salesman. One day, the music director for the college came in looking to buy a seven-foot grand piano; the one they had had been stolen.

Yes, you read that right. A seven-foot grand piano, weighing about 900 to 1000 pounds, was stolen. It was in the middle of the day, with students and staff everywhere.

Pianos in institutional settings like a college may need to be moved from room to room to performance hall, so they sit on what’s called a grand dolly — a three-legged frame with small three-wheeled platforms that the legs sit in — allowing it to be easily moved.

How did they do it? They backed a truck into the loading dock, some guys in identical jumpsuits walked into the music department, said, “We’re taking it to be serviced,” and rolled the piano out to the freight elevator and onto the truck. Away it went, never to be seen again.

They tried to take the nine-foot, but it wouldn’t fit in the elevator.

I am teaching American literature to juniors — kids roughly sixteen to seventeen years old. The class is usually taught chronologically, starting with colonial literature, and I try to show how history is directly reflected in literary styles and topics. 

We’ve finished Romanticism and its death in the Civil War and have moved on to Western expansion (cowboys, Native Americans, the Wild West, etc.) and the literary genres of Realism and Regionalism. I’m grading a short quiz over what we’ve covered so far.

Quiz Question: “Identify one technological advancement in the US that led to increased popularity in the style of either Realism or Regionalism.”

Student’s Answer: “The Transcendental Railroad.”

My Only Thought: “Totally far out, pardner…”

I’m in a production of “Amadeus” for a local theatre and they have decided to help promote the show by having me and the actress playing Constanze be in a car for the State Fair parade. That morning, we get to the staging area to get ready for the parade. I have my costume, but I didn’t get into it at home, not wanting to wear it more than I have to or drive in an eighteenth-century outfit of brocade. They don’t really have any sort of costume changing area, just the bathroom of one of the stores for which we are using the parking lot.

So, having met up with Constanze and gathered my things, I head off to the bathroom… only to realize I have forgotten part of the costume. I head back, get it, and go off to the bathroom again… only to realize I have forgotten yet another part of the costume. I go back to get it. I tell Constanze as I pass her to go back to my car:

Me: “I’d forget my head if it wasn’t attached.”

She laughs a bit since she, too, has a huge number of pieces for her costume, but she has managed to remember everything. Since her car was closer to the bathroom, she has agreed to let me store my street clothes, wig head, etc. in her car.

The parade goes by with me doing my Mozart laugh for a few miles and we get back to the staging area. I get changed back into my regular clothes, tell Stanzi that I’ll see her that evening for the show, and start toward my car with all of my clothes.

Then, I hear her calling me.

Constanze: “[MY NAME]! YOU FORGOT YOUR HEAD!”

I turn around to see her holding up my wig head.

Me: “IT WASN’T ATTACHED!”

I work every Tuesday at my kid’s middle school store. An eighth-grader that I know comes up and asks for $13 worth of gummy fruit snacks.

Me: “That’s a lot of fruit snacks. Are you going to share with all your friends?”

Eighth-Grader: “No, I’m eating them all for lunch.”

Me: “But you have braces, and I’m going to see your Mom on Friday. Do you think she’ll want to hear this?”

Eighth-Grader: “I don’t care; it’s my money.”

Friday, I see his mom and tell her. 

Mom: “So, that’s why he had a stomach ache and wouldn’t eat dinner!”