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Old 8th Dec 2019, 08:41
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ShyTorque

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Join Date: Nov 2000
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At an Officers' Mess meeting, sometime in Germany, we were informed that a local lady had offered to donate an old unwanted piano if we wanted it and by a vote it it was gratefully accepted. An upright piano appeared in due course; it was in remarkably good condition...for a while.

I was SDO during a very rowdy visit from a visiting Belgian F-16 squadron (and I was therefore sober and living in the Mess overnight). The shenanigans in the bar began, the piano being the centre piece of the entertainment. One visiting pilot, well beyond sober, decided that the piano needed "decorating" and ran outside, pulled up an entire hydrangea bush, complete with roots and a few pounds of soil and before we could stop him, plonked it on top of the piano. Unfortunately the top was open and much of it disappeared inside. Not many of the notes worked after that so his colleagues decided to wash it out with beer!

A few months later, a piano tuner turned up to service the piano and announced that he could not do his job because the piano was beyond tuning and half of it was missing. It was then that we discovered that the old piano had never turned up. The one that had been abused over the period was actually a brand new one, rented from the NAAFI!
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