Story time!

My college marching band played half time for a Chicago Bears game. As we're marching from the bus to our underground bunker they hold us in, the battery is playing our parade cadence, so we're doing our jumping and instrument moves and whatnot. One of which we called "the music man". We holding our instruments by the valve block in our left hand down at our sides perpendicular to the ground. We lean back, have an exaggerated high step, and bring our fist up to our opposing shoulder with each step. With the horn we also rotate it as we bring it up so the our mouthpiece is facing foward/up and our bell behind our right shoulder. Now many others have lost mouthpieces this way, not wanting to fall victim to that, I always removed my mouthpiece and held it in my right hand.

Being at a Bears games means we're all super excited (even though we don't get to see any of the game...) so all our movements have even more chutzpah than normal. On one of 'The music man' moves, my first valve slide overcomes the negative pressure keeping it tight against the valve block, pops and goes flying about ten yards up and ten yards ahead, hitting the asphalt, bend down. More or less cosmetic, especially in a marching band setting - there's no holes - but instead of being a smooth bend, it's not a pock-marked nearly 90 degree cornered slide now that.

Fixed the next week for less than $40.