Destroying a Piano

Today's very late noon ride to work
I really did destroy a piano today.  My employer encouraged us to volunteer our services at a local low-income pre-school.  It's located in downtown Albuquerque and they had an upstairs floor full of stored junk.  The center hoped to clean the upstairs enough to be able to hold staff meetings up there.  One of the listed projects was "disassembling a piano" that was too large and heavy to safely be taken down the very narrow stairs to the ground floor.  That sounded like a job that could be actually completed within a few hours, so a couple co-workers and I signed up for that portion of the project.
What a mess.
Not only was the work dirty and difficult, it was downright DANGEROUS.  Anyone who may have dealt with the innards of a piano will recognize what I'm talking about.  Not only was it built heavy, it was very solidly assembled.... and difficult to take apart.  We finally got the front portions of the piano removed, exposing the strings and sound-board.  A few dozen VERY heavy duty screws later, we thought the cast metal stringboard should come loose.  Not even a wiggle.  We found and dislodged a few more screws but still no sign of anything loosening.  We finally realized the hundreds of piano wires strung very tightly were actually holding the sounding board very firmly in place.  We started cutting piano wires.... very dangerous.  I almost ruined my Gerber multi-tool cutting several dozen of the smaller wires.  I went back to my car looking for stronger wire cutters but no dice.  So we began BREAKING the wires rather than cutting them, by gripping with heavy pliers and vise-grips and twist/yanking.  POW!  CLANG!  Horrible dying-piano noises as we crashed and ripped piano wires large and small.  Many of them sparked as we popped them apart.  We joked, only half-heartedly, that someone should have been taking video of the grisly process.  We got pinged by the sharp wires:  I have at least 3 healing punctures in hands and fingers from the procedures.  Only one set of safety glasses was available between the 3 of us piano-destructers, and it's a wonder none of us suffered any eye damage.  In retrospect we realize we should have just gotten several of us strong backs and weak minds to manhandle it down the stairs and out to the dumpster receptacle.  Even though we finally got all the strings removed and the sound board separated and the legs in separate piles, the monster back-board was still heavy and awkward to manage down the stairs.
Now, I LIKE pianos and piano music.  I can play at least 3 songs from memory and enjoy it, and really enjoy listening to or singing along with someone who really CAN play the instrument.  But this repeated-every-few-years thing of MOVING them, and now actually DESTROYING one......  I think I'll stay home next time.
Still got to ride the bicycle to work, though...... even if it WAS noon by the time I saddled up and got rolling.
Pre-Ride BG: 178 (after a sticky-bun reward at the child center)    Post-Ride BG:  125
Beginning Battery Voltage: 12.5       Ending Voltage: 12.3   (Gel Cell battery pack, no charge for 2 days now)
Beginning Temperature:  69 F        Ending Temperature:  77 F
Morning Stats from the GPS:        Total Miles:    7.40
Overall average speed         Moving Avg       Max Speed
12.7. Mph                          13.1 mph            28.7 mph
Total Trip time                 Moving Time          Stopped Time
35 mins 00 secs               33 mins 50 secs     1 mins 10 secs