Surprise Guest at Piano Lessons

I love being a piano teacher. I really, really do. Yesterday at 5:00 my student jumped out of his family’s Surburban and raced up my front steps, unzipped his backpack with gusto and said in a loud, vibrant voice, “You’ll NEVER guess what my grandma sent me in a box!” He pulled out a science specimen jar complete with a preserved shark the size of my hand inside. “It’s a pickled SHARK!” Some piano teachers might have been a bit taken back, but I’ve always had a soft spot for science specimen jars. I hope he thinks of a great name for his shark in a perpetual formeldehyde bath.