Strangest thing you’ve ever found in your sousaphone?

[sousaphonestephanie]

One day in 1968, as we entered the HS band room for practice, it smelled like crap (literally) in the room. The band director was looking around for the source. However, in the instrument storage room, when my sousaphone buddy started to lift up his fiberglass sousaphone (36K, I think), urine dripped out of the lead pipe and it smelled really bad in the storage room. Then, he picked up the horn and there it was - a load of crap in the bell. We never found out who did it and I don't know if the crapper intended it for my sousaphone, my buddy's or if it was just random. Band was cancelled for 2-3 days and both sousaphones were sent out for service. That's when, because we were forced to, we had to play the brass sousaphones and I discovered that they sounded so much better. I don't recall what kind they were, possibly Kings. I never went back to the fiberglass sousaphone again after they came back from service. My buddy refused to play the fiberglass ones too because we didn't know which one was his and so we didn't know which one got crapped into. So, he played the brass sousy too. The following year we were both seniors and we graciously let the 2 freshmen play the fiberglass sousaphones.

Welp. That sure takes the (****)cake.

[Donn]

That sure takes the (****)cake.

Urinal cake? I doubt it would have made much difference, but it would have been a nice touch.

[tubasoldier]

I worked in a music repair shop in high school. I helped to chemical cleanings and minor dent removal.

One sousaphone came in over the summer with a condom stuck in the valves. It took a lot of work to get the darn thing out. I'm not sure what the kid was doing with a condom inside his tuba!

Personally I usually ended up with a few pennies or wadded up paper. I did get a nickel once so that was exciting!

[toobagrowl]

Some of you have some nasty stories, ewww
Besides a few pencils, gum wrappers and soda bottles, the strangest thing I found in my sousaphone back in h.s. was a mini umbrella. Our colorgaurd one year used mini umbrellas as part of their routine, so I knew it belonged to the colorgaurd. I emmidiately knew something was wrong with the sousa after playing a few notes because it responded and sounded very stuffy. So I looked down the bell and pulled out that mini umbrella and threw it across the bandroom because it pissed me off. I think they got the hint not to mess with our sousas after that

[tofu]

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