That B Sticks

Eight o'clock on Sunday night, the phone rang, "Hi this is Sammie, I have a Yamaha piano. The B has been stuck since last week. It is very urgent. Can you come to fix it?"

"Of course! How is the key feels like? How urgent is it?"

"I have a performance in two weeks and I use this key a lot. It is very sluggish. Can you fix it? My address is 7 Mildew Street, Moldy Berrytown." The man sounded helpless. I felt a deep pity on him.

"Sure! I can come tomorrow night after work. Would 6:30 pm work for you? Do you also need the piano to be tuned?" I was trying to be polite and trying to have his piano fixed as soon as possible.

"That'll be great! I don't think the piano needs to be tuned. See you tomorrow!"

The next day, I left work half an hour earlier just in case there was traffic. Also, the customer sounded like he was calling 911 for his piano. On the way to his house, I pictured in my mind what could cause the key to stick. Things stuck in between somewhere? A mouse got caught inside? A pencil fell in? The high summer humidity caused the wood to swell? Rust in the action or on key pins? Damper guiderail bushing too tight? His eyes and his mind didn't work at the same speed? His voice registered him to the range of 80 years old and beyond. 

I rushed out of the car dragging the heavy tool bag to his door. There he was, hair all snow white, sitting on his stairs looking so very lost. I greeted him and followed him to his piano. At the corner of a small room, there was a Yamaha electric keyboard. He indicated that this was the piano to be fixed. A Electric Keyboard! I'm an acoustic piano tuner. He was right, this piano did not need a tuning. No. And my heart sunk.

Fine! Maybe there were screws to be taken out to open up the case to see where things were stuck. His keyboard was covered with all sorts of stickers from prior gigs and plastic tapes, extremely colorful, covering every possible screws on this poor instrument. Hopeless. Maybe there were a serious number somewhere to be used to call customer service. I knelt down to look at the bottom of the keyboard. There was a barcode! Above the barcode, "Tuna Fillet $13.99/LB Market Basket". He got a good deal on the fish! Remember that joke? If you can tuna fish, you can tune a piano. 

So I called up a music store nearby and got information of a few repair shops who could help him, wrote down their numbers, addresses, and hours of operation for him, told him to call me if there is anything I could do to help. But I forgot to remind him, next time calling for help on his keyboard, make sure to tell the person on the other end of the line that this is an electric keyboard to be fixed.

Of course, I will always ask what kind of piano is to be tuned or fixed in the future. Lesson learned.