...because I FORGOT!!!!
A little miracle: (big to us!)
Jeffrey (the 8 year old) has recently started taking cello lessons. The conservatory provides him with his instrument, a 1/8 cello made by Samuel Eastman company, which retails for $1400.00, and a soft case. When they gave him the cello, we had to sign a contract stating that we would pay the conservatory $1200 if anything happened to it.
At the time of this discussion, my husband asked how many times children had broken instruments, and the director assured us that it had only happened twice in 7 years. One was stolen out of a car, and the other, a Mom tripped over it and broke it. So we signed the contract, thinking the law of averages was in our favor.
Boy, were we wrong. Last Friday, Jeffrey was exceedingly well behaved in his Music Theory class, so I took him to Braum's for an ice cream afterward. After he had finished his chocolate-dipped-peanut-butter-cup-ice-cream-in-a waffle-cone, his Grandma took him out to the car while I ordered chocolate shakes to take home to everyone else. When I came out to the car, I looked in the back seat and my son was sitting there with tears streaming down his face. I opened the door and asked him what was wrong, and then it hit me - THE CELLO. I was near tears myself as I unzipped the cello bag. Sure enough, when he had gotten back into the car, he had climbed over the cello and stepped down right on the neck and snapped it in two behind the fingerboard.
He cried all the way home. I was silent, because I knew if I talked, I'd cry, too. We do NOT have an extra $1200 right now! Of course, my husband didn't take the news much better, but I was relieved that he didn't rake Jeffrey over the coals too much. He is only 8, and accidents happen. ANYWAY...we've been fretting over this all weekend. I
just bought my husband a motorcycle for his 40th birthday, so we were even discussing selling it to cover the cost. We decided to wait until we had spoken to the director.
My husband talked to Ms. Aida yesterday, and she told him to take the cello to Tulsa Strings for evaluation. When he talked to the repair guy over the phone, he was pretty pessimistic about the possibility of repair, but thought that we might be able to get a replacement cello for $800. Okay. That's still a lot, but better than $1200.
I couldn't stand the suspense, so I called my husband this afternoon at 2:45, when I knew he would be at Tulsa Strings. He said, "I was just about to call you. Jacob said that this cello has been repaired before, and that it broke in the same location it did last time. He's going to be able to fix it for $60.00." "
$60?????"
I hung up the phone and burst into [happy] tears.
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