Office Visit

Monday was the day. I left work shortly after 3 PM to take my clarinet to the repair shop. The shortest road to Gorham from work is the road that goes right by the office - Congress Street. I quickly got on to road and came up to the stop sign. And sat. Through one red light and nothing was moving anywhere! Craning my neck I could see a sign that said, "Construction Ahead - Expect Delays." Right. So I could see. The traffic coming off the Maine Turnpike couldn't get onto the road because...the road was already full of cars waiting their turn to move forward...an inch or so.

I quickly wheeled into the turning lane, hopped onto the Maine Turnpike, went up one exit and caught the Westbrook Arterial into Gorham and was on site and only a minute or so late.

I took my clarinet to the repair man - Bill Street - who looked at it, tried putting the pieces together, sealed the end and blew in them, and held the barrels up to the light and said words to strike fear to any performer's heart, "What do you have for a warranty?"

None, that I was aware of at least. Why? I wondered.

He had me look into the barrel of the top joint and it was ROUGH! Very rough. Like it had never been polished, he said. He sees that fairly often and it takes him about 1/2 - 1 hour to polish it. Otherwise, if I didn't want him to do it the instrument should be returned and replaced with one that was polished and finished. Oh, and he found the spot that was binding.

I put in a call to Lisa who answered right away and spoke with Bill (they knew each other) and then she called her "set up" man who agreed it was about 1/2 - 1 hour maximum to fix. She agreed to pay up to 1 hour at her guy's rate toward having Bill do the work, which seemed reasonable, though Bill has a higher rate than her guy. I figure it will take less time for him to work on it than to FedEx it back to Illinois.

When will I get it back? I don't know. I guess I'll call on Tuesday and see if I can pick it up after work or if I'll be without it another week. He seemed pretty busy.