Once when I was at the church piano practicing a song with a few friends, I got a little crazy and began doing glissandos up and down the piano keys to get a laugh. Of course this would not be appropriate in a church setting, but since it was just ‘us girls’ I thought I could get away with it.

Well, I’m sure you’ve heard “your sins will find you out” and they sure did because to my horror, I looked down and saw it. Red fingernail polish marks all over the formerly white keys on that beautiful grand piano! (Not that wearing red nail polish or doing glissandos in church is a sin, just a figure of speech) Oh no! All of us girls tried everything we could think of to remove the marks. We searched the church cleaning closet and tried everything. The marks wouldn’t budge. Someone said, “Let’s try nail polish remover!”  I said “NO! Back in the old days, piano keys were made from actual ivory, but now days they make them from some sort of plastic.” I just knew that polish remover would probably destroy the finish. Well, nothing we tried that day would work, so we had to leave the keys like that.

The following Sunday, of course the pastor asked me what had happened with the piano keys. I’m sure he thought some rotten kids did it, but I had to ‘fess’ up and tell him that it was me who caused it. He smirked and I told him that I wouldn’t rest until I found a remedy.

I tried everything. This was back in the day before the internet, so I couldn’t just Google it. I had a book entitled “Mary Ellen’s Helpful Household Hints”. That book had a solution to every cleaning issue, but nothing for my piano key problem.

Time passed and my best friend’s son Jeff, who must have been around eight years old at the time, came running up to me one Sunday after church, all excited saying, “Shannon, Shannon! Hey, guess what?! I fixed the piano keys!” (Of course by now, the entire congregation had heard all about the red polish on the piano keys.) I hurried to the piano and sure enough, the red marks were gone!  When I asked him what concoction he used to get those stubborn marks off with, he simply said, “I erased them.” When I asked him to show me, he took a pencil with an eraser on the top and simply rubbed the keys. I was amazed! All the marks were completely gone and the shiny finish was perfectly intact. I thanked Jeff and told him the next time I have a problem that I can’t find a solution to, I was coming to him for the answer. Yup, he felt pretty good about himself that day, kinda walking a little taller, knowing he saved the day!

So now, whenever I accidentally…or on purpose, leave a nail polish marks on white piano keys, I pull out an eraser and simply erase them! Kudos to Jeffrey!