Not to get too legal here, but in an effort to conceal the identities of the participants, let’s say that the party of the first part (we’ll pretend that his name is Ian) works at an antique store. Well, it might be more accurate to say that he’s a starving actor with a day job at an antique store. Anyway, one day his crazy boss – because the boss in these stories is always some sort of a loon – has a 19th century musical box and she’s trying to throw it into the trash dumpster behind the store. Ian, suspecting that this is a valuable musical box, and knowing that his boss is crazy, asks if he can take it home, rather than just tossing it into the trash. The loony boss says that this will be fine, because the musical box is clearly broken, and no one in the continental United States will be able to repair something that old.

Time passes, and Ian is unable to find any skilled craftsmen who are capable of repairing the musical box. Ian then gives the musical box to the party of the second part (we’ll pretend his name is Dirk). Dirk understands more about certain antiques than Ian, and everyone sort of assumes that Dirk will be able to find someone, within the continental United States, who will be able to repair the nofunctioning musical box. Dirk makes a few inquiries, strikes out, and stores the musical box – temporarily mind you – in the back of his garage.

Years Pass.

Dirk begins a project to clean out and reorganize his garage. Dirk, and more importantly Dirk’s wife, only now discovers the vast quantity of antique paraphenalia stored in the back of the garage. Now to be fair they both probably had individual notions as to how much stuff was back there, but having seen the looks on their faces as we shoveled it out into the gradually increasing pile on the patio it’s my opinion that they came to realize that their concept of the sheer quantity of stuff had been a severe under estimate. Oh, did I mention that early on in the shoveling phase of garage clean out Dirk had contacted the party of the third part (We’ll pretend that this is… Well, it’s me actually.)

So about half way through a long day of mindless physical labor, after several guest appearances by Dirk’s wife who gazed with increasing dispair at the burgeoning pile on the patio, Dirk began to give stuff away. I think I ended up with a portable CD player, some big pieces of styrofoam, something that I remember as being made out of wrought iron, and finally the 19th century musical box. Now Dirk is a sportsman, so he made strenuous efforts to point out that the musical box, whilst old and pretty, didn’t actually work. He turned the key, and fiddled with the levers but only managed to squeeze a couple of odd ‘plink plink’ sounds out of the thing.

The party of the third part (again, that’s me) probably looked about in a shifty fashion as he graciously accepted the gift. I then went home and wrapped it up as a Christmas gift for the party of the fourth part (we’ll call him Mick). See, Mick collects all sorts of mechanical musical devices; gramaphones, Edison wax cylinder players, and musical boxes. If anyone would know where to find the correct repairman, in the continental USA, then Mick would. It would be a perfect Christmas gift for him. It was an antique. It was pretty. And it was broken, which meant that it would not be interpreted as too expensive, since Mick would now have to invest some of his own time and money in repairing it.

So Chrismas eve I packed up the last of my gift deliveries into a large box. I couldn’t quite get the musical box to fit, so I turned it on end and crammed it into the box along with all the other gifts including several bottles of the traditional Christmas Comedy Relief Wine. On the drive to Mick’s house I hit several rough patches in the road. So much so that I remember the wine bottles rattling about to the extent that I thought they would break. I delivered my gifts, had a couple of drinks with Mick and his delightful wife, explained that he was receiving a gift ‘That he would need to have repaired before he could enjoy,’ and then I left the house.

The day after Christmas I received a phone call from Mick. He was entranced with the musical box, although he wanted me to tell him just what tune it played. I reminded him that technically it didn’t play any tune, as it was a broken musical box that he would need to repair. He then held the telephone up to the musical box, which then played a very pretty, oriental sounding tune.

Yup, fine European craftsmanship. No one in America, at least the continental United States, could fix it, but sling it on its side into a box and drive it over some uneven road construction and it’s as good as new.

Some who hear this story think of it as just an unrelated chain of events. I tend to see it as a mechanical Christmas miracle which has now used up all my good luck for 2008.

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