Just putting it out there, what do you do to clean your instrument? I'm not so creative using the normal rituals of cleaning soap, water and a rubber duck, but have recently heard of some strange ones such as Windex and other horror stories.Any interesting techniques? Buy the way I'm not sure if I'm potentially harming my instrument so I have stopped for the moment,but I find that erasers take off much of the buildup on your tuning slide.

I put my instrument in the bath tub submerged with slightly warm water and Dawn liquid detergent. I snake every part I can get to. Everything else gets the washcloth. I find Dawn is best at disolving the old grease and oils (I don't like Palmolive - you can rinse it a thousand times and it still suds up).

After the bath everything is dried, the instrument is tilted, rocked, turned, whatever to get all the water out. I then wipe off each slide and apply appropriate grease. I oil the valves and then play for 15 or 20 minutes. Empty all slides and re-oil the valves.

I don't put my piston valves in the bath tub water. I take my piston vavles out and kind of give them a sponge bath to keep the felts from getting wet. I do put my rotary valves in the water.

Bathing your brass instrument should not cause problems. What CAN damage your instrument is if the water is too hot (some lacquers will peel). and NOT OILING your valves !
Remember the 3 rules for oiling valves -
1- Everytime you take your instrument out to play.
2- Everytime you put your instrument away.
3- Every hour of actual playing time.
--you can never over oil your valves, however it is easy to under oil them - -
I keep a bottle of oil in each instrument case, one on the music stand in the music room, one in the tool box in the garage, and at least one in the 'stock' closet.

I have been doing this for more than 30 years. I don't have valve problems. Friends of mine come to me with their instruments valve problems to be fixed, wondering what is causing their problem and when I ask about oiling they answer, "oh, I oil them when they need it". If your valve needs oil you have already damaged it. Every one of my friends and colleagues have had valve problems except one. He and I are the only ones I know who haven't had valve problems and we both follow the 3 rules of oiling. That should tell you something.

Oh B-Bear...(yeah, I'm out to ruining your name on the internet too)
if JohnloveMusic is right, then your valves are long gone...seeing as you spilled all your oil in your backpack, you probably haven't oiled your trumpet in forever.
But what am I to be saying here? I don't play trumpet, nor do I intend to.

Did you ever find out who dented your trumpet? That's a shame...
Maybe you can still get a new trumpet at the end of this month though.

with windex..only use the one that says windo and not multi purpose to wipe down your trumpet like once a week for me..it's only recommended for silver laquer( i don't know why lol)

Some products like windex contain ammonia which will rip laquer off fast (first hand experience)...also, don't go too hog wild taking things apart, or else your could warp a valve very easily (again, first hand experience. A very nice Yamaha horn I had as a kid was never the same after I had to have the 3rd valve ground down a bit).

The bath in Dawn sounds like a good idea...