Today just wasn't my day. Had negative sales. Negative as in I let a lady return a clarinet against policy as she claimed it just didn't work right at all and she had already bought another elsewhere. In all fairness this is a new line that hadn't even played by anybody in the shop so I had to concede it was quite possible that it just wasn't any good. Since she bought another somewhere else that kinda' killed an exchange. I very reluctantly gave her the money. She also tried to buy a music book. There I drew the line. She made me break my own policy (and state health laws, which generally forbid the return of mouth blown instruments) without even giving me a chance to make right on her problem in the many ways available. I've got more of the same clarinets, I've got better clarinets and if it's just a factory glitch I can fix it. I told her that was the end of us doing business together. I'm not selling her the book.

So she left mad, but not too mad because she got what she came for. I was livid for the second time since I started this venture. So I picked up a reed and stuck it in. Darn thing plays just fine. Gave it a full pad inspection. Let one of my instructors run through the scales. Nothing wrong with it. My guess is she needed a clarinet for a weekend and didn't want to rent one. Or she found somebody on the net with a better price. There's no better price around here. Chalk it up to experience and move on.

Came home and started making a guitar bridge out of some wood in the garage. Cutting small pieces of wood with big saws is frought with peril so I clamped everything down and went to make a cut. A piece broke off and launched itself into my thigh. Yeeouch. OK, the table saw is not for this job. I'll use the cutoff saw which is. Even observing all the rules another piece got launched and put a big purple dent in my finger. Nope this wasn't my day. I'll make the bridge some other time. I unplugged all the power tools and locked the garage. Not going back in there tonight.