Their Loss, My Gain

My aunt the past week has been hounding my mom, asking if I would like to buy her piano. I didn't realize what the big rush was until my mom finally told me what was going on. Apparently my aunt and uncle's house is going into foreclosure (they got the papers) and if someone doesn't take the piano, it will go to the highest bidder on December 7th when her house is auctioned. I called my aunt to find out about it because I remember it was pretty and a light red oak but that was about it. She was really happy I called and asked if I could meet her there so she could atleast let me take a look.

I went over yesterday with the kids. It's a 1896 Jewett Boston upright however it's not as tall as some of the other old uprights. It's in really great condition. I played the old baseball Charge song on it (so I could "hear" the tuning by playing chords) I was impressed. She told me at this point they don't know if they'll come back the next day and be able to get in so she said $200 and we get this thing out of the house pronto. I had expressed my concern to her about this really not being the RIGHT time of year for us to do this with Sophia's birth bill coming soon, Christmas, etc. BUT I agreed because it looks great, plays great and it's been re-keyed, re-felted, etc. When they bought it she said they paid $1,000 for it.

It was so sad seeing the house empty. I wish we could have bought it from them. It's a tri-level with a big barn, pool with pool house on 3.5 acres in the rural school district the kids go to now. They figured if it was going to be auctioned off they would take what they invested so they took out the kitchen they installed 5 yrs ago, all the hickory cabinets, the marble countertops. The kitchen was just tile. lol! They tried selling it twice before this happened at around $150K. The outbuildings needed some work but the house was in great condition. I haven't said anything but inside I just want to say... "why didn't go go get a job at McDonalds?" My uncle has Chronic Pancreatitis and they accumulated $30K in medical bills and he's worked on and off but she really has no reason for not working the past 10 yrs except that her back hurts. She carried Mia (25lbs of her) around the property just fine. I just don't get it. Why work so hard for something and then just let it go because you want to try selling stupid vitamin supplements to any ding dong in your family who will by them. Or jewelry. Or a fasting drink. Or some dumb gold pyramid scheme. Ok after 3 failed self employed attempts you'd think a person would get that NO ONE WANTS THAT CRAP! Not her though. I want to just scream at them both. "Are you guys watching the news? Do you not see our economy is in the shitter at the moment? You need to work a real job to retire!"

Anyways it's just a sad situation but if all goes well and I can get a mover to do this immediately we should have a pretty nice piano sitting in our front room today.

EDIT: I found a guy who jumped on it for me and got it here at 2 pm! There's no key for the lock so my dad's going to make one for me. I hope he's quick because only a few hours into it's arrival and I'm going nutty from the kids bangin on it.