Grandma's Piano Bench

On Mother's Day my husband had to work so I decided to go over to my moms house with Little Buddy. I had asked her a few days earlier if she wanted to go for lunch and where she wanted to go for Mother's Day. Little Buddy and I go there almost every weekend when my husband works side security jobs for the pd at various places in that town. We head to my moms in between Little Buddy's naps, then we go upstairs to her apartment til Little Buddy gets used to her (still in stranger anxiety phase so he screams bloody murder if we go there and she just hops in the front seat), then we all three head to Chipotle. My mom loves it, Little Buddy behaves there for some odd reason, plus he eats an entire side of guacamole for lunch? He has loved the guacamole there since he was like 7-8 months old. Odd, I know. It's very healthy so I roll with it. The vegetarian bowl is in my diet so I like to go there too. Strangely when I told her we could go wherever she wanted she picked Chipotle. I was relieved money-wise and weight-wise (down another 3 pounds). So we headed over between am & pm naps.

I let her open her gift (a pair of pajamas & a warehouse size container of chocolate covered raisins). After visiting in her apartment for a few minutes we headed over to Chipotle. The music is really loud in there and my mom loves to dance in her seat while she's eating for Little Buddy. He loves it. He chowed on guacamole, a huge bowl of fresh blueberries, Cheerios, & Goldfish crackers, and a spoonful or two of my and my moms lunch. Then we headed to the nearby nature center and walked around outside and looked at the animals in the huge cages and let Little Buddy "get his walk on."

The weather really sucked so we headed back to Grandmas to visit for a little bit before going back home for Little Buddy's pm nap. My mom is a piano teacher so she has a grand piano in her apartment. She lets LB play the keys as long as he doesn't bang on them. She is a very musical person and has lots of musical instruments. She opened up her piano bench and started to grab a green pouch out of it. She said, "Hmmm, forgot what's in here," and tried to figure out what was in the pouch by feel. She started to laugh with a devilish grin on her face. She asked me, "Did you guys give this to me?" I also tried to feel the pouch without opening to see what was in it. Oddly, it felt like the male anatomy?!? I thought it was some odd gag gift she's received but definitely not from me/us (my husband and I). Or, wait a minute. I opened up the pouch and saw a life-size penis flute complete with balls . . . . . . . painted black. I could not stop laughing. It was something handcrafted (sorry, but you know what I mean) made out of pottery or clay like what someone may bring back from Mexico or Dominican Republic. Yes, we did get it for her when my husband and I were on our honeymoon in the Dominican Republic 5 years ago this October. Funny, how you forget things like this. She has been solo for years and we thought she'd get a kick out of it, which she did . . . . . and still does . . . . . so do I.

Wait it gets better. After we stopped laughing from that, Little Buddy still playing the keys on the piano. She grabbed a tambourine I'd never seen before with some kind of writing on the side in marker. I asked her where she got it and she said she didn't remember. Then she started to read the writing on the side. "Love Barbara Manz-icki." "Who is that," I asked. She said, "I have no idea, here you look at it I don't have my glasses." I read it again, closely looking at each letter. It was definitely hand signed with marker by somebody, but who. "Love, Barbara Mandrell," I said. "Mom, this says 'Love, Barbara Mandrell,' where the heck did you get this?" "Think hard." But she couldn't remember. It was definitely a real signature and a professional musicians tambourine just an older one that was beginning to fall apart. I was shocked, and thought maybe it's worth something. How do we find out? How does one determine if the signature is truly Barbara Mandrell's? My mom doesn't have a lot of money, I'd love to sell this for her and make some money. Wonder how I go about doing this. If anyone knows, please let me know. Amazing what you can find in Grandma's Piano Bench.