No- shows..... again

[paul bruesch]

DingDingDing... and the winner is... Nick Gravagne! That is a great tale!

On Fri, Aug 1, 2008 at 5:47 PM, Nick Gravagne <gravagnegang at att.net> wrote:

>  Amazing no-show (kind of):
>
>
>
> Many years ago when I lived in Albuquerque a brand new customer and I
> agreed that if she wasn't home she would leave the door unlocked and that I
> could just go in and tune her grand piano. Since I tuned for her Church and
> other friends she trusted me to take care of business in the event of her
> absence. Well, I arrived and knocked at the door – no answer. Rand the
> doorbell, more nothing. I tentatively tried the doorknob – not locked. It's
> hard not to feel creepy in these situations, but I gingerly entered the
> house and found a mahogany grand piano. Still, I lamely called out something
> like, "Hello, anybody home – I'm the piano tuner." The sound of silence was
> deafening.
>
>
>
> So, I tuned the piano completely undisturbed; left my card and bill and
> moved on with the day.
>
>
>
> That evening and a phone call from my customer. She wants to know what
> happened; she was there for our appointment and I never showed up. I assured
> her that I had, and that no one was home and that I tuned her mahogany piano
> in the living room. Trouble is, her piano is ebony and it lives in the
> studio, not the living room. A mystery now. We made another appointment for
> the following day and I had dinner that night, sitting wide eyed, sure I had
> entered into the Twilight Zone.
>
>
>
> Later that evening and the phone rings. A man identified himself, but all I
> really heard was "I don't know who asked you to tune my piano, but it sounds
> great and thanks. I will get a check in the mail tomorrow."  Of course he
> wanted to know more, who put me up to it and so on. I asked the man for his
> address and I wrote it down, and when we hung up, I checked it against my
> appointment book, and as they say in the South, "I like to fell down." I had
> the correct house number but was on the wrong street! And the street names
> were similar; they had a theme, such as Cedar, Spruce, and Cider. Well,
> somewhere along the way, when I was looking for Cedar I ended up on Cider
> two blocks away, and with no appointment walked into the house of a perfect
> stranger, tuned a mahogany grand, and managed to get paid!
>
>
>
> What are the odds?!! Later that night I imagined all sorts of weird and
> wild scenarios that might have happened, but thankfully did not. I'll leave
> it to the rest of you to think about. I also wondered how I could possibly
> justify such an unbelievable tale to my new customer with the ebony grand,
> who I "stood up". It turns out she believed me, and sort of knew the other
> party. We laughed.
>
>
>
> Who could forget such an odd story? Still, I learned to never walk into a
> strange house unless I was absolutely and completely sure of the address; or
> better yet, if I had never been there before to simply not go in, or even
> try the doorknob for fear that on the other side of that door might stand,
> cigarette in hand, Rod Serling.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> *Nick Gravagne, RPT*
>
> *Piano Technicians Guild*
>
> *Member Society Manufacturing Engineers*
>
> *Voice Mail 928-476-4143*
>
>
>  ------------------------------
>
> *From:* pianotech-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:pianotech-bounces at ptg.org] *On
> Behalf Of *pianolady50 at peoplepc.com
> *Sent:* Friday, August 01, 2008 1:02 PM
> *To:* Pianotech List
> *Subject:* Re: No- shows..... again
>
>
>
> Best No Show (for me)
>
>
>
> The job involved removing the 'drawer' in a Recordo grand to bring in to
> the shop for rebuild.  The customer lived an hour and a half away (one way)
> in a gated community south of Tampa, FL.  She had told me that she would
> be meeting her husband at the airport, but that she would leave my name with
> the guard at the gate, and the house key would be under the front mat.
>
>
>
> Seeing as I knew extra hands would be useful in the drawer removal, my dad
> accompanied me on the trip.
>
>
>
> (Can you anticipate what happened?)
>
>
>
> After battling our way through Tampa and hauling down the east side of
> Tampa Bay to Symphony Isles (no kidding), we arrived at the guard shack.
> Pleasant older man emerged and I announced my name, my customer's name, and
> my purpose for being there.  He hadn't a clue.  The customer had forgotten
> to tell him.  How frustrating to be sitting there, knowing that just several
> streets away was that house key waiting for me.
>
>
>
> We drove the hour and a half back home and I immediately called the
> customer getting her answering machine.  I left a pleasant, chiding
> message.  She called back that evening to apologize and I could hear her
> husband, in the background, kiddingly giving her grief.  We made a new
> appointment and she assured me that the guard would be told.  I asked for
> the phone number at the guard shack!   I called him before I headed out to
> her house, and every time in the future.
>
>
>
> Debbie L.
>
>
>
>
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