A
Moral Victory
February 23, 2002
JustMikeF
A young man was
studying the antique piano he and his wife had recently inherited. As most old pianos go, they are old technology
pieces as well, rarely worth restoring and rarely do they have the sound you would expect
for the expense. He decided to have it tuned
to determine if further expense would be justified.
Further investigation under the keyboard cover revealed a metal label
stating that the instrument had been tuned many years ago in the old country by a
craftsman named "Opperknockernee". The
young man was amazed that a craftsman would be so confident as to put his name permanently
on his work.
He decided to
contact Opperknockernee in an effort to put the instrument and craftsman together again. Through family members he found that the old
craftsman was still in business, so he called to arrange an appointment to have the piano
tuned. The phone rang, the old man answered,
the young man explained why he was calling. The
old man became quite belligerent and after a few words, obliterated by a language barrier,
said, in no uncertain terms, "NO!"
Moral of this
story?
Opperknockernee
Only Tunes Once!
I was playing on
one of the gambling cruise boats in Florida. It's
pretty tough to have a winning session on these boats.
Not many regular players that you could file away in your memory as to how
they shoot. I couldn't get it together
either. Two or three tosses then a seven. I was, what seemed to be, out of sync with my bets
and the dice results of the other shooters. In
short I was having my d--- knocked in the dirt.
I was approaching
my loss limit and was about to color up. Looking
up, I did a double take. The stick was
pushing the dice to a kid that I recognized from a previous cruise. The only other session I saw this guy shoot,
ELEVEN, ELEVEN, POINT, SEVEN OUT. The next
time he got the dice, ELEVEN, ELEVEN, POINT, SEVEN OUT.
Two red chips to
the stick, "Yo, Please."
Very few elevens
had been thrown so far that night and I began to regret my bet. I make one roll bets only the second full moon of
a month, the "Blue Moon."
"YO"
the stick cried. I restrained myself
from doing a back-flip!
"Press the
YO." Was that my voice I heard say that?
"YO"
again the stick sang.
"And
down" I said. I have not seen that kid on a boat since, but I will remember him
should the opportunity knock twice.
Color Me Up!
JustMikeF
Back To
Mike's Musings
|