Many years ago, a friend of mine carelessly left some of his record albums stacked atop a radiator. His mother–she must have been too busy to notice–laid a pile of clothes on top of them. By and by the heat came on: and melted the records into a kind of U-shape.
“Oh, no!” he cried, when he discovered the error. “Mom, you’ve ruined by favorite record albums!”
Ah! But I was there, and I had an idea.
We put one of the damaged albums onto a large skillet with a burn-proof surface, put it into the stove, and turned on the oven. “This’ll work!” I said. “The heat will soften the album, and gravity will pull it back into shape.”
And that’s what happened. Soon the album was nice and flat again. It was The Hurdy-Gurdy Man, by Donovan. We rushed it to the record-player to hear how well it had been restored.
Almost! The only problem was, Donovan now sounded like he was singing at the bottom of a deep well. Most of us laughed ourselves silly, hearing it.
But I’m afraid my friend was not amused. So much for his record albums.