altivo

Had some friends over for a spaghetti dinner yesterday. My mate makes the most spectacular spaghetti and meatballs, we never have trouble attracting guests with that. Anyway, the dirty dishes had piled up and most of us were in a good mood aided by some nice Aussie shiraz (Jacob's Creek, 2003) when the subject of glass harmonicas came up.

This inevitably caused Gary to produce a catalog from his huge collection of mail order catalogs that he expected would offer one. We couldn't find it in there, because the index was awful, not even in alphabetic order. Anyway, during the hunt I chanced to land on several pages of bagpipes. Now, I don't detest the bagpipes as some do. In their place, I think they are quite lovely. Even so (and perhaps you had to be there) I ended up in that rare state where you try to read something aloud and the very thought of it keeps making you laugh so that you can't read or speak.

The "accessories" available for the bagpipes were a long list of improbable sounding items with funny names:

Little Mac bagpipe valve
Reamer to install Little Mac
Airstream blowpipe with built in Little Mac
Airstream mouthpiece (for use with airstream blowpipe)
Airtight bag seasoning
Bore oil
Hemp 1 oz
Hemp 2 oz
Cobbler's black wax
Rubber stoppers for plugging stocks, set of 5
Rubber stoppers for plugging drone pipes, set of 3
Bagpipe teflon tape
Goose adaptor

Definitely makes the instrument sound like a plumber's nightmare, no?

And the item that made me lose it?

"Rubber flapper valve"... which for some reason I immediately associated with the one inside the loo or toilet tank. I haven't had a laugh like that, where you find you can't even breathe, in a long, long time. Probably at least since my Mom passed away. She had a way of inspiring those situations. Anyway, you probably had to be there, but I needed to make note of it and what caused it. ;)