Elli vs. the piano. Episode 88

The back and forth between Elli and me, as she attempts to destroy her piano and I attempt to make it destruction proof, has been well documented in this blog.  I thought I had done a pretty good job.  So many brackets in place.  Mounted to the wall.  Combination locks to keep the key cover open or closed.  Pretty much every possible place she could use her fingers to pry something open was screwed shut.  (I admit I finally just gave up on the bottom portion of the piano.  She never uses the pedals, so their destruction was irrelevant.  And the strings are too strong for her to break (I think?!?)).  We had gone along without incident for weeks, perhaps even months.  Then Elli found a new trick.  She couldn't completely pull out the keys, because I had screwed in the long piece of wood that keeps them in place.  But she found that if she pried up on the very front of the keys, she could snap them off right where the wood crossed the key.  Awesome!  She did this with five keys before we stopped her.

This is a significant problem, because it is pretty much impossible to get replacement keys for a 50 year old piano.  We will try to glue them, but it's not a very promising prospect.  Not to mention that once we restore her access to the keyboard, it will only be a matter of days before she starts snapping them off again.  We are pretty sure of this because that is what she did to our $1500 digital keyboard when she was left unattended for a matter of minutes.  Oh, Elli!

Notice the myriad brackets and locks keeping it shut until we can get the keys fixed. 

Why play the piano when you can play ON the piano?

This one keeps us on our toes!!!

-Jer