Getting a Tip for Playing Piano - "What's a Piano?" I Said.

I was staying at a Hollywood hotel. I had been there 2 or 3 days attending a seminar. I was on a "working vacation," - my favorite kind - and I was going to stay an extra couple of days after the seminar to tour LA.

The day after the seminar, after dinner, I had had a few too many drinks at the bar.

The piano player went on break taking his tip money but leaving his tip jar behind.

"Ah - ha!" I thought, "my opportunity." Several people were in the bar, including a woman nearly as inebriated as I. As I staggered up to the piano, I could feel people staring.

I have no idea how to play piano, never had a lesson, still don't know how to play.

As I sat down on the bench, I stretched my arms and fingers like I had seen on tv cartoons and in movies.

Taking a deep, loud, breathy breath, I swung my arms up over my head and then slammed ny fingers down on the keys. Ouch is probably the only term that comes to mind to describe the "music" that resounded throughout the bar.

Over the next few minutes, I imagined myself as a great pianist, playing the piano with great (drunken) enthusiasm, but making the most hideous noise imaginable.

The bartender just watched; I wasn't damaging the piano and perhaps he was amused to see a patron pound away on the ivories making such a fool of himself.

I was nearing the end of my "set" when the very inebriated woman at the bar (in a white gown) stood up and staggered to me.

Placing a few dollars in the jar she mumbled something like "good job."

I stopped, stood up, reached in and grabbed the dollars and got another drink at the bar just as the regular pianist returned.