Funny gag gift

Many of you saw my blog post about banjo shopping with my student Tim Slanczka. (To view the post, click here.) One of the best parts about being a banjo teacher is that my students end up becoming my friends more often than not. Also along for the ride this day was my student Kathy Tuinhoff, who appeared briefly in the video here and there. It’s been a joy getting to know Kathy personally, and we even went to the now-famous death metal concert together where I became possessed by demons. (To relive that night of fun and frivolity, click here to read the blog post I wrote about it.) Well, the day that Kathy, Tim, and I went banjo shopping, prior to me turning on the camera, Tim and Kathy gave me a Christmas present which I absolutely loved. I thought it worthwhile to share it with you.

A gift from the Banjo Twins

Tim and Kathy are both professionals in the medical field, and they happen to work together. They both found me, independently of each other, and discovered quite by accident that they were both coming to me for lessons. And, a little more than a year later, they find themselves in roughly the exact same spot in the lesson material. All of that led me to call them the Banjo Twins one day in an email to both of them. I guess it stuck because they ran with it. What follows this paragraph is the text of the gift they gave me at Christmas: a guide that they came up with to help the banjo instructor survive the pain of sitting through beginner banjo lessons with student after student. Oh, and just to be fair and balanced, and to present both sides of the coin, you’ll see their guide to help beginning students survive their instructor. This is great stuff. Enjoy!

Banjo Twins Inc. presents: The Banjo Instructor’s Student Survival Kit

Do you know a banjo instructor who is suffering from undue stress caused by incompetent students? Would you like to alleviate impending mental illness with the only A.M.A. (American Medical Association) approved treatment? Then the Student Survival Kit is the Christmas gift for your banjo instructor! It’s been tested on 100 (minus 99) subjects with excellent results…depending of course on how you define “excellent”.

This patented kit includes:

Click to enlarge the teacher's survival tools

*) A bottle of pain reliever for those 20 minute tuning headaches.

*) One roll of stomach acid dampener tablets for nauseating renditions of Ground Hog! (*a song taught by Banjo Paul)

*) A piece of hard candy in festive holiday colors to keep your instructor from sucking his/her thumb after a 20 minute, out-of-tune mangling of John Hardy.

*) Patented Banjo Twins ear protection guaranted to decrease the occurrence of migraine headache after smiling through the utter slaughtering of Wildwood Flower with the student’s thumbpick on backwards. Use with the pain reliever tablets for extra relief!

*) One precision tuning instrument for precise tuning of the student’s banjo following the creation of a new bluegrass tune due to mixing up the low break of Foggy Mt. Breakdown with the high break of Cripple Creek, rendered in the key of Z-flat!

*) Banjo Twins Inc. is pleased to include, with this order, a custom designed serrated knife signed by Ted Nugent and guaranteed to cause maximum damage to any deserving student banjo player!

(Note for students: do not include this next section in your instructor’s gift bag. Only include the above information.)

Important:

In the event that your instructor has completely gone off the deep end and locked him/herself in the bathroom following your performance of Theme Time that awakend brain-eating zombies, please go to our website at www.banjotwinsrule.com. On our website you can request, at a nominal fee of $5,000, a prescription of anti-psychotics and antidepressants written by Twin 2 and filled by Twin 1 and guaranteed personalized for your banjo instructor! Don’t wait, act now! Banjo instructors are difficult to find and are a protected species since 1999!

Coming soon…

The Banjo Student’s Banjo Instructor Survival Kit

You provide us with a picture of your instructor and we provide you with a custom designed voodoo doll! You say you can’t possibly complete the assigned lesson in two weeks time leading up to your next lesson? We say: GET EVEN!

Your kit will include explicit instructions along with a variety of hatpins, sewing needles, fish hooks, and assorted body piercing jewelry for that demanding instructor! This product is currently in phase II testing and will enter phase III as soon as the cattle prod goes on sale at Quality Farm & Fleet, the black candle goes on sale at Target, and Twin 2 finishes the digitally remastered CD of Lamb Of God (the death metal rock group.)

Note: for best results, Banjo Twins Incorporated recommends collecting hair and fingernail clippings from your instructor prior to using this product. A little blood or plasma would increase the chances of successful cursing.