Played Like a Piano

I don't know if you youngins every heard of the great King Tee. He put out the timeless classic "Played like a piano" back in the day with my man Cube. Have you ever been close to doing some unbelievable-cannot believe I'm doing this shit-people gon' be mad cuz they can't do this shit only to have that dream crushed in a second. I call it getting played like a piano. It's like getting a shawty's phone number and agreement to go out with you, but then that trick plays you and doesn't show up. Well these are my trick playing me moments below.......

The first instance of played like a piano happened with my boy's bachelor party. My boy was marrying an NBA All Star's twin sister and immediately I had dreams of "This is gonna be the fuckin' dopest wedding gala EVER!". I remember one day it was him, me, and 2 of our other boys having lunch. He started telling us about his how his future brother in law took him to Vegas in a private jet over the weekend for his bachelor party. MGM Grand. Top Floor. You know where the rooms are like 10k and above a night. Told us that the entourage consisted of him, the b law, his b law's homeboys and various celebrities. Foxy Brown. Luke Walton. Shooting dice. Shooting pool. Sounds like some The Hangover shit don't it. When he finished his story, he told us his b law asked him why he didn't ask any of his boys to come. Yep we got played like a piano...

The next instance of played like a piano happened at my company's conference. One night I was at a party, sippin' some of that free corporate bubbly b/c I'm a corporate whore monger :-). Anyway, as I'm watching folks try to dance that had no rhythm and wondering why the DJ is playing a fucked up mix of music (he played Jigga's "Empire State of Mind" followed by some Britney Spears song, no lie), I spotted one of my customers. We start shooting the shit and catching up on old times when a manager walks up. He and the customer had lunch that day and the joke was the customer mistakenly called the manager my name. [Side note. The manager is Indian. I am black. He wears no glasses. I do. How do you confuse us? ]. So the 3 of us start talking and get on the subject of the NBA playoffs. Since the customer is in Phoenix and I'm a huge Lakers fan, we start jawing about what if the Lakers and Suns meet. The manager chimes in that hey if they meet in the playoffs, "I'll get you guys box seats in Phoenix." I was borderline tipsy but quickly perked up at hearing that comment. So what happens in 2 weeks? Both teams win their series and I'm immediately in that manager's ear talking about "what's up on those tickets!" This dude starts talking that political bullshit asking if this guy is the key decision maker on the deal, yada, yada, yada. So how does this end? How do you think? I got played like a piano....AGAIN.

Which brings us to the final chapter in the Played like a Piano trilogy. I'm working with this customer that has bought a shitload of products from my company. So much that it's like my company is giving this customer it's own key to the city, I kid you not. So one of the sales reps on the account tells me one day while we are talking that he and one of the customer's key people are going to an executive event. No biggie right? We do this shit all the time? Take customers to events in the US, normally at some resort. Nothing really to trip on. Fast forward a few weeks and I'm on a customer call with one of my co workers and the customer. My co worker makes a quick comment about well the sales rep and key customer contact are over in Africa for the World Cup. Cue record scratching. You wanna rewind that? Yea the executive event is the World Cup. He further adds did you know that our company had 10 slots for folks to attend the World Cup, 5 for our company, 5 for the customer. But only those 2 went. 8 tickets not used. Because the sales rep didn't want to spend any extra money. Of course it's not hurting anybody if it's just them two going. What. The. Fuck. For as much grind time I put in with this customer, I can't go to Africa. Yep you guessed it, played like a piano.....

Today's Lesson

Ain't no damn lesson today, the Honest Man is bitter. Fuck that shit, I wanna shoot dice with Luke Walton LOL.