Isn't my ability to hijack threads amazing? I noticed that just recently.
OK, back on topic.
We've pretty much covered the Big Purse method, but I don't see a lot of macho dudes getting excited over it.
There's always the briefcase-on-wheels concept, but I think you'd risk stepping on too many toes with it.
Perhaps one of those laptop cables might help. Run the cable through the embouchure, down through all the sections, and out the end. You could dip it in plastic to keep it from scratching, but I bet that as the flute-lock industry exploded manufacturers would soon start making rubberized-coated ones.
Each lock would come with a battery-operated drill. As you encounter pub tables which don't have enough holes drilled, you would just drill another. Eventually, as the idea caught on, there would be enough holes to go around.
It would not only save your flute, but save your place at the table!
A little side-loop/plastic arrangement could be devised to cover and protect one's pint. In my case, I'd just loop it through the handle of my tea mug.
There, back on topic.
Last edited by Lambchop on Wed May 04, 2005 9:05 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Oh heck, Peggy, they're just telling stories about theft now. I can't imagine anyone caring if some of the stories are about bird rescue. It sort of fits into the instrument rescue theme. You can just tell us more hair-raising stories about bird rescues.
I bet more men have things stolen than women do. I'm sorry about that, but I think women are so used to hanging on to their purses for dear life from a very young age that it just comes natural to hang on to other things for dear life. I had my purse stolen in the sixth grade and I still haven't gotten over it.
Back in the day, when I was a hippie, I was hitch-hiking in Wyoming and accidentally left my leather fringed hippie purse in the VW van I was catching a ride in.
A few months later, living & going to school in Seattle, I received a package in the mail (forwarded from my mom) ~ yep, it was my purse, not a thing had been taken from it, and they had sent it home to the address on my driver's license.
Good Karma.
I sympathize with the purse thing. The horror never leaves you.
While I was in a swimming class at college when girls from the local high school ripped off everything in the locker room. Including my birthday present from my mom--a lovely handmade patchwork suede hobo bag. A custodian from the high school--Alcee Fortier in New Orleans--called me to say she found the contents of my purse, but no purse. My contacts had been in the purse, and I had no glasses, so someone had to take me on the streetcar to the school. When we got there, the custodian showed me this little pile of soaking wet paper.
She had found it in a toilet. The lovely woman had fished it all out and washed everything, then laid it out on a towel on a table. My checkbook was all there, although ruined. My last $10 was gone. My makeup was ruined. Everything else was there, including my contact lens case, which was open.
I started crying, realizing that my contacts were probably already in the Mississippi River. I had no idea how I would get another pair. I couldn't afford them. My mother had told me that if I lost them, she was not buying more, and that I'd have to buy my own glasses. And my glasses had been horrible. Hugely thick and heavy and ugly beyond belief. All the children taunted me over them, so the day I got contacts was literally the happiest day of my life. Now they were gone.
I was overcome with the certainty of never marrying. Not ever. Who would have me? They'd be afraid their children would be born with little pig-eyes, just like mine behind the glasses! AAAAAUGGGH! Especially not now that I was going to have to carry all my worldly girl-stuff in a plastic trash bag (which the custodian had kindly provided).
The poor custodian was taken aback by the magnitude of my grief. She tried to console me. I kept sobbing "My contacts! My contacts!"
She suddenly looked horrified and, very carefully, asked what they looked like. I told her they were little tiny disks of hard, light brown plastic--they were tinted so that I would have a chance at seeing them. She rolled her eyes.
The good new was that she had found them. I was overjoyed, thinking she had found them when she opened the case after fishing it out.
The bad news was that she had found them after she fished out everything else. While peering round the . . . other stuff . . . in the toilet--an assortment so outstanding she described it as "uh, everything"--she saw them against the porcelain waaaay down at the bottom, almost gone round the bend, and she had fished them out not realizing what they were.
And there they were, wrapped up in a bit of soggy tissue. Not a scratch on them.
I not only had my sweet purse stolen, but I had to wear those contacts. After they had been in a toilet.
It affected me profoundly.
Four years later, I was walking from the downtown campus to my night job at a French Quarter restaurant. It was 3 p.m. My bag was over my shoulder and under my arm, containing not much of value, except for my biostatistics book which I needed to study at work. Some young man sidled up to me and, with both hands, tried to pry the bag away. Everything shifted into this incredible slow-motion. I remember being incredibly calm, pivoting toward him, grasping the purse myself, and continuing to hold on as he attempted to drag it, and me, out into the street. I said, "No, really, thanks, I can carry it myself." He kept dragging.
The thought of those contacts popped into my mind, and I was overcome with rage.
"I AM NEVER GOING TO BE REDUCED TO WEARING sh*t-SOAKED CONTACTS AGAIN, YOU F'ING SOB!"
And I snatched up the purse, with his arms, and began slamming him with it. Book and all.
People literally ran to get away. He started screaming "JESUS! LADY! YOU'RE F'ING CRAZY!" He was so busy trying to cover his head that he let go. He ran away down the street, pointing at me and shouting that I was a lunatic. And a scary bitch.
When I got to work, I was starting to feel a little pale from the whole episode. The cook, who was a pimp in his spare time, came out from the kitchen to see me after the waiters told the kitchen staff what had happened. When he found out that I had been walking a fairly long distance from school, he realized that I must be taking the streetcar home at 2 a.m., and he was horrified.
After that, I rode home in the back of a biiiiig, hot pink limousine with velour upholstery, three of the cook's Very Large, Gold-Encrusted Assistants, and his Femme de la Nuit. She was there so I'd feel safe.
To this day, my purse, should I be carrying one, is affixed to me as if with epoxy.
Last edited by Lambchop on Sat Jun 11, 2005 10:43 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Oh, Peggy!
Talk about trauma. What a story of desperation, kindness, and panic.
Bless that custodian lady. And bless you, too. What a character-shaping event. May none of us ever find our flutes desecrated in such a way. And may all wayward instruments find someone as kind and careful as that woman, to protect and preserve them until they find their way back home.
Yes, may none of our flutes, nor whistles, nor fiddles, nor pipes, nor any other instruments ever be so desecrated. And may Guardian Angels look after each and every one of them, and after their owners, too.
Last edited by Lambchop on Sat Jun 11, 2005 10:40 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Great story, Peggy! I'm sorry about the first part, but convincing a purse snatcher that you are a dangerous lunatic - I'm impressed! I'd like to meet you someday - but not in a dark alley.
Oh, yeah, and getting a flute stolen is a bad thing. Just to keep on topic...
A purse is a good weapon. I remember when I was little seeing a lady repeatedly hitting a man---probably her husband---on the head with a sturdy white purse in a parking lot. It had handles so she was able to get quite a swing going. He sort of ducked and dodged a bit and didn't appear to be getting hurt. The idea that a woman might even attempt to hit a man was quite shocking to me. Fortunately I have never had the need to.
The purse I had stolen in the sixth grade had nothing valuable in it like Peggy's did. But it was, in my small little mind, the first truly adult purchase I had made and therefore had, I suppose, great sentimental value. I got it the first time my mom let my best friend and me go downtown by ourselves on the bus. It was on sale at a department store. It was brown plastic meant to look like alligator skin, very shiny, and to me, the height of elegance. A naughty boy hid it and man I cried all the way home for lunch, all through lunch, and all the way back to school. My poor mother tried to talk to me about the world not actually having come to an end, but I really felt it had. Luckily, the truth came out after I got back to school and I got my precious purse back. It never occurred to me to hit that boy on the head with it.
Cynth wrote:
The purse I had stolen in the sixth grade had nothing valuable in it like Peggy's did. But it was, in my small little mind, the first truly adult purchase I had made and therefore had, I suppose, great sentimental value. I got it the first time my mom let my best friend and me go downtown by ourselves on the bus. It was on sale at a department store. It was brown plastic meant to look like alligator skin, very shiny, and to me, the height of elegance. A naughty boy hid it and man I cried all the way home for lunch, all through lunch, and all the way back to school. My poor mother tried to talk to me about the world not actually having come to an end, but I really felt it had. Luckily, the truth came out after I got back to school and I got my precious purse back. It never occurred to me to hit that boy on the head with it.
Mary, I'm glad you got your purse back too.
Think back on what was significant and important to you in childhood. Isn't it amazing that you perceive them to be bigger and more critical than you would today? I've noticed that with a lot of things. Cars, boyfriends, blenders . . .
Every now and then, I discover something that I never quite got adjusted to the proper degree. My perspective was way off back then and it's still off today. It worries me that I have a whole lot of those things lurking in my mind, ready to pop out and make me miserable.
Thanks, everybody, for appreciating my stories. They're true, you know, but I do try to emphasize the surreal aspects of them--that's what makes them fascinating to me. I don't sit down and plan them out, either. Something triggers them and . . . out they flood. Good thing I can type.
I'm not always successful in getting things "just right." There is a fine line between enough and overboard, or enough and nobody getting it, and I'm still not quite sure where it is. What you see here is a first draft, too. Spontaneous and usually unedited.
Currently, I'm amazed that the same bit of writing can entertain some, yet utterly alienate others. Then, there are a few people who just seem to detest everything I say. Every word. I never know when they're going to pop in and bash me. You'd think they knew me or something.
With some of them, I think it began with their realization that I'm not a real musician. With others, I think it began with their realization that I am human and have opinions. Of course, it doesn't help that I can get off on a rant every time someone mentions . . . well, best not mention it . . . like I'm channelling a kvetch.
Cynth Wrote: "I just felt that the tone of this thread was invoking more anxiety that was non-productive"
=========================================
Some of these replies are anything but non-productive. They give very helpful ideas on how to better protect the instrument that provides us with SO much joy. I waited over 4 years for my flute to be made for me, paid a great wad for it and yes I treasure it. It doesn't own me but I DO respect it's incredible quality and the workmanship that went into it. It is not the $ value that is of such importance, it is the joy it brings to me and those who hear it. So you bet your socks I'm going to keep my eyes on it.
Rather than poo pooing those of us who actually keep care of our possessions, maybe you should read and learn and appreciate that we are passionate about them.
keyedup---:lol: I'm not the one that wrote that. I am ultra-paranoid, I swear. The person quoted me in that post, but they wrote the part you copied here. I'm the one who always puts her leg through her rucksack strap. I feel there is no safe place. I feel one's own home is not safe. Really. You can check my other posts on this thread. I firmly believe you can never be too anxious.
Sorry Cynth: I was the first to put a response to the first note in this thread and now there are 4 pages of responses. I should have read them all. My mistake.
i was playing in a pub session one time when the guitar/singer sitting next to me, started up a song. the bouncer came over grabbed him by the hair, literally picked him right out of his seat, and took him outside. this was a case of stolen musician. the guitar remained in the pub.
be cautious about your instruments in public places, and be careful you don't get stolen either.
okay girls let's get back to the high strung drama queen bonding....i love it. if anybody touched my pocketbook, why i'd bash her too. geez, glad i got that off my chest, whew do i feel better!
edit: he stole the wrong musician, if a muscian was to be stolen, people were hoping it was...
