We planned to meet my mom at King of Prussia mall - the world's largest indoor shopping place by retail square foot, including an Apple store and several high-end stores like Versace and Tiffany's - for a little white-sale shopping at JCPenny's. We left a bit early so we could make a couple of stops along the way.

Abby wanted to buy a spring for a recent invention project. The thing she's building is a kid of box that beats would-be burglars over the head with a piece of wood if they should attempt to open this particular safe-keeping box. This is in lieu of a lock.

I wanted to stop at Microcenter to pick up an Eee PC. Berta had recently expressed an interest in having an available PC in the family room for browsing during TV watching and homework assignments without having to lug out and power up the work PCs, and this fit pretty well. She needn't have spoken two words of that endorsement before I was ready to buy. And I thought that our priciest purchase that day would be the Eee PC. Alas.

We met my mom at the mall shortly after we arrived from Microcenter. They (she and Nana) were waiting for us on the second floor outside of Penny's where they were looking down from the balcony onto a piano wholesale event taking place in the hallway intersection. Below us were a dozen or more pianos of various types and people demoing them.

Abby wanted to go down and see, and Berta being the kind of mother to encourage interest in music in her kids, took her downstairs to look. The rest of us eventually convinced Riley to go downstairs, although I primarily think his problem was with the height of the balcony, since he wouldn't get near it.

In any case, we poked around a few of the pianos, which all had "do not touch without assistance" signs on them. Eventually, one of the salespeople, Josh, came over and demonstrated the capabilities of one of the electric pianos that were on sale.

I recall Berta prefixing the entire demonstration with, "Well, we're interested in learning about what you have to offer here and get some pricing." And I remember thinking to myself, "This is a pretty long spiel without giving us a price." As he talked and played longer and longer, I saw the rolling dollar signs increasing more rapidly, until finally he stopped playing and flipped around the laminated "Do not touch" sign, whose back mentioned the prices.

According to the sign, the full retail price of the piano he was showing us was somewhere around $19,900.

Obviously, this is not correct. How can you trust the salespeople not to use overinflated prices to get you to accept a "reduced" price? You can't. But still, it's interesting to say. In any case, there was also a suggested retail price, which was somewhere in the $12k area, and then there was the actual wholesale price, very close to $11k.

The model of piano that we were looking at is listed in Wikipedia, surprisingly enough. It's a Yamaha Clavinova CVP-309GP, and even Wikipedia lists its retail price at about $10k. The model we were looking at had some extra options, though, so it may have merited a slightly larger price tag.

The piano itself is black, although they use the eloquent "ebony", with a mirror-like polished surface. Unlike the upright piano I would have settled with, it has a small rounded area in the back that seems to serve only an ornamental purpose. But it looks cool.

One thing I did mention to Berta when we were looking at this thing is that if we would buy one, it would be something that would go in our living room, and so it shouldn't just be an instrument, but also a nice piece of furniture. The problem we had with the two cheaper models is that they just didn't look nice enough to put in our living room. The wood on the other two was almost like vinyl stick-on wood grain - very tacky. Plus they didn't have all of the features.

This piano... It has a color screen and can also plug into a TV. It has wooden keys, just like a real piano, and they are weighted like a real piano, too. Each note of the voice of the piano was recorded in many different ways, so that for example, a soft press of the key sounds like a soft press of a piano key.

The thing has karaoke with a chorus effect and music you can download from the internet directly just by hooking the piano to the network. (Yes, the piano has an ethernet port, in addition to USB, smartmedia slot, and floppy drive.)

So, we debated a bit about whether to spend so much money on such a thing, and the sales guys did their job and gave us the, "We're only here for one more day, and we'll sell you the floor model for cheaper and give you a cash discount, let me just call my manager and ok it." And like the suckers we are, we bought the thing.

But I gotta tell ya, I didn't go to the mall looking to buy a piano, and ever since we got back from that shopping trip my mind has strayed to taking breaks from work during the day to stroll into the living room and re-learn to play. Yes, it would be somewhat of a loss if nobody in the family played, but I have at least rudimentary skills. Abby has expressed interest in taking some lessons, and Berta has even said that if there is a piano sitting there it'll be hard not to want to learn. I'm sure it will see plenty of good use.

Man, we're crazy.