Being charitable is hard work

As you know, if you're among my millions thousands hundreds tens couple of regular readers, we've been gutting the family house, in preparation for moving there and selling our current house.

One item we were unable to move out on our own is my Mom's piano. It's an upright piano that has been in the basement rec room since some time before I was born.

I didn't care about getting money for it. I just wanted it to go to someone who would make good use of it. I figured my Mom would like that, and I certainly couldn't stand the thought of it being destroyed or sent to the dump.

So I put an ad on craigslist that said it was free to anyone who could offer it a good home. I was thrilled when, immediately after I placed the ad, a charter school in Jersey City, New Jersey, contacted me.

Apparently, they have a couple of keyboards for their music students but not an actual piano. I spoke to the music teacher and the principal and told them the piano was theirs. All they had to do was get someone to move it out of the basement and onto a truck to bring it to them.

Today, I got a call. They had found movers who would move the piano, and it was within the limits of their on-hand petty cash ($250), thus alleviating the need to go through the bureaucratic process (and delay) of vouchering payments and such. So we scurried over to the house and prepared for the arrival of the movers.

When the movers arrived... well, it sure wasn't United Van Lines! There were three guys. One looked like the lead singer from Dexy's Midnight Runners but not as healthy looking. The second appeared much like Jerry Garcia not long before he went to that great pot party in the sky. The third guy is more or less irrelevant, since he came in, took one look at the piano and announced that he wanted no part of it.

So these two guys alternated between trying to figure out how to get the piano up the stairs and bitching about how it wasn't worth $250. Finally, after about 15 minutes of trying, the Dexy guy said he was going to call the school and demand more money.

Our contractor, who was trying to help them (and quite obviously knew more about moving heavy objects than these "movers") watched the guys walk up the stairs and then said, "they're not coming back." I said, "well, we'll see what they say."

Silly me. Manners like that apparently were beyond these guys. They didn't say a thing. Instead, they just drove off without another word, having been advised by the school that they didn't mind a little higher price but didn't have extra money on hand at the moment.

Yet another example of You get what you pay for! (Shouldn't that be, "you get that for which you pay"? Never mind. No time for digression into an exploration of grammar.)

I spoke to the music teacher, and he was both embarrassed and apologetic. I told him not to worry about it.

So he said they'd find someone else and give this another try.

Yet another rule now comes into play--one which served me well in my dating days--"If at first you don't suck seed, try try again!" ;)