They say the happiest days for a boat owner are the the day he buys the boat and the day he sells the boat. I’m gonna say that applies to a piano owner as well. Man, I had such dreams of having people over to my house and people gathering around for a sing-a-long. Or maybe I would leave the piano at my bar and on a slow night with 20 people in the bar and we would randomly walk over to the piano and one by one, people would join in, drinks in hand and we would sing “bar classics,” as we ordered more drinks. And a slow night would turn into a group of strangers singing the night away. But that ain’t what happened.

My antique piano from London that I bought on Craig’s list turned into a 200lb paperweight. I called a guy out to tune it and he took one look at the brand and said that he didn’t tune British pianos. He gave me the phone number of someone that did. I called that guy and he quickly informed me that he wouldn’t take my money. He said that a majority of British pianos were built for looks and not really for sound. And mine was 130 years old and basically it would cost me at least the amount that I paid for it to try to tune it. He asked if the stool came with it and if so, keep the stool but get rid of the piano…it didn’t come with a stool. So, yesterday, I was talking to one of my customers and trying to figure out what I was going to do with the piano. I needed to move it before this Friday so that my band would have ample room on the stage. He asked how much I wanted for it. I gave him full disclosure on the tuning issue. I’m not sure if he is going to try to get it working or use it for target practice since he lives in the country. I told him I had $450 invested in the piano. And it would cost me another $150-200 in labor to get my guys to deliver it. He made me an offer of $400. SOLD!!! I even left the money on the bar for an extra 10 minutes just in case he changed his mind. He didn’t. I scooped the money up and told him I would have it at his house by Friday afternoon.

Nate, my new gringo Mexican bar manager has been trying to learn the lay of the land. He was quick to learn that not speaking Spanish would be a bigger issue than he thought. Duh. We knew this going in. Just the simple things like a trip to Wal-Mart can be troublesome when you don’t speak the language. But he isn’t discouraged yet. At least I don’t think so. He has to make an extension to the stage area in the bar in the next 3 weeks for Coolio and he has to basically do this on his own. He has to buy tools, supplies, lumber, everything. Then he will have to get the stuff delivered to the bar. He has his job really cut out for him. And I’m not sure if he really believed me when I told him that everything takes 3 times as long to get done in Mexico but he does now. He says he is so tired of everyone saying “tomorrow” as far as when something will get done. Well, I guess they actually say manana. Welcome to Mexico sir!