One man's trash is another man's treasure.

Hi! This is a story about how one man's trash is another's treasure. 

Back in 2005, we had a family vacation over in Bangladesh. Naturally, the way to go was by air travel. That was when I had the most luxurious privilege of flying first class. Wuhuu! I was on the back to Malaysia. My dad had collected air points over the year from his business travel that he got enough to get 4 free business class upgrades. And for some reasons I didn't bother to learn at that time, our whole family got bumped up to first class. It was a pretty spectacular experience. We were flying Boing 747 too.

Well, anyway, I digressed. Having to spend over two weeks in Bangladesh, my brother thought I was a good idea to bring his guitar along on the trip. My dad being a utilitarian and a critical person that he is, considering he is an engineer, was pretty skeptical about putting the guitar in a plane cargo without any hard casing cover. My brother only had a fabric cover back then. I don't really remember the details but somehow my brother manage to convince my dad to bring the guitar on the trip, with very much debates.

Fortunately, nothing happened to the guitar when we got to Bangladesh. My dad had taken all the precaution of cushioning the guitar and making sure it is marked as a fragile cargo. The airport staff in KLIA are pretty particular about fragile cargo. Hooray for world class airport! It was pretty nice to have guitar around on trips like this.

The story doesn't ends there. After spending a fortnight over in the city of Dhaka, we finally returned safely to our beloved country. That is when it happened. When we were picking up our luggage, my brother noticed that something was off with his guitar bag. It was all flimsy and unshapely. Upon a closer look, he realized that the headstock of the guitar was snapped in half. Oh boy. That wasn't very good.

The airport staff have a shitstorm coming their way. My dad have a track record of having a bad temper. He was already boiling hot when he learnt about the guitar. He went to find the person in charge of cargo handling and launched a very stern complaint. I wouldn't wanna be close to him when he is that angry. Anyways, he tried to get the best out of the situation. I think we did get a good amount of compensation for the guitar, but I am not so sure because I wasn't paying that much attention at that time die to fatigue from the long flight. I didn't bother to ask him about it later because I don't see why it is a good idea to bring up something he was furious about. Let's just assume for the sake of the story that we did get some compensation.

So we were all good and happy and safely gotten home. Later, my brother use that compensation money to buy a new guitar. He was pretty happy about it. He still kept the broken one. He had it under his bad for quite awhile. Eventually, when spring cleaning comes by the Mazli's residence, he had the broken guitar tossed by the garbage can in front of our house.

At the sight of that sad broken guitar leaning against the black garbage can, it got me thinking. Maybe I could salvage this piece of instrument. That when it got me going. I went to the local hardware store and bought a few nuts and bolt. I made sure to wait until my dad wasn't home so I can use his power tools. He doesn't like people touching his tools. So I used them to drill out some holes on the guitar and had the nuts and bolts clamped the two broken pieces tightly together.

That is how the guitar was reborn. And it still plays well even until today.

I am not ashamed or icky at all of having to use handed-down or old refurbished stuff. Some people does, but I am quite the opposite. Sometimes I would wear t-shirts until there are 5 holes on them. I always wear hand-me-down stuff from my dad or my brother, if I like them. I guess it comes naturally being the youngest in the family.

In this particular case, it was pretty cool though, having a guitar with bolts running through them. I kinda have a sort of esthetic to it. I makes you look kinda cool among you friends. You know how it is, teenage boys. Well on top of that what made it better was the bolt serve a functional purpose to. Because of my lack of planning, the bolts I bought to fix the guitar was a tiny bit too long. It is protruding around the back of the headstock. I looks like a bad fix-up job.

Well surprisingly, it serves a good hook. I can pretty much hang the guitar everywhere. Because of the weird weight distribution of the guitar, it basically balances out at the points of the bolts, similar to one of those balancing parrot toys or the balancing fork table trick you occasionally do at dinner to impress your date. I can practically hang the guitar on the edge of the table, if it's tall enough. When I was in boarding school, I use to hang the guitar in the closet to save up space. It was pretty awesome. I love it.

So, moral of the story? As before, hanya jauhari mengenal manikam.


Syazwi Mazli was telling as story about his guitar that day.