lizkat
Coffee Maker
Before I had an apartment that could accommodate a baby grand, I lived in a 4th floor walkup. A friend who let me use his studio piano for practice had spotted a hand-written "Free piano" sign in the building next door to where he lived. It was some huge old monster upright thing, but the owner had kept it tuned and let me play it and it was more than just ok.
So next was to find a piano mover. Well a piano mover is expensive so my friend and I found four guys who did regular household moves. They did fine with the thing until they got to the landing of the third floor and it turned out the wrought-iron rails of the staircase at that point were set in a couple inches further on the stair treads than the rails for the floors below. Of course they were. And, the piano wouldn't fit. So we got the building's superintendent involved at that point, temporarily removing the rails (after one of the movers was dispatched to a hardware store for some WD-40 to help with ancient bolts).
By this time what with all the hammering and fair amount of cursing, there was an audience for the rest of the drama. Tenants from the third and fourth floors were intrigued, and there was speculation about whether the piano would even fit through my front door. "Just shut up lady, this thing's stronger than a doorframe" said one of the guys on the trailing end of the piano as they took a rest near the top of the climb.
Loud applause broke out when the guys muscled the monster into my apartment (which had a shotgun-style layout) down a hallway, through the kitchen, and finally to the living room. The guy who'd been sent to the store for the WD-40 broke out the case of beer he'd thought to pick up along the way back. Everybody partied down, we tipped the guys with the last of my grocery money for the month and the last thing their foreman said as they headed past the super, who was putting the stair rails back together, was "Lady when you move, don't call us. My advice, leave this thing be when you go." I did. For all I know that piano's still up there.
