"Fortunate Timing - the background story"

Circa September 2017: knock knock. If there was a good reason to do one-legged squats 2-3 times a week, it would be to stand up from a couch with ease. This mumbling chug is a premonition. Right - it's a white van. Signed, sealed and delivered, it's my cherished 2007 Fender Jaguar. Dark cherry red with a matching headstock. I won't succumb to the silly idea of naming a guitar after a girl's name -- though that Simpsons episode comes to mind. (It was Charlene, wasn't it?)

The Jag plays like a dream. I don't give a fuck what the elitist snobs say about the perceived shortcomings due to its short scale. Call me a hipster, but the extra space behind the bridge adds an indescribable charm when processed through fuzz. I believe the cliche is "when words fail, music speaks". Like a language before we even took it up. Like, what was there before the enforced phonemes and diphthongs -- a time akin to being in the womb. How death may be the same . . .

Circa October 2017: I hit up S___ to set up this guitar as soon as possible. Ever so reliable -- and efficient. A very nice bloke. His wife answers the door, however, and she takes the guitar.

A few months pass with further delays: parts go missing, and texts aren't responded to. The details don't matter. Life, aka full-time work and the scant time around it, is Groundhog Day. I'm almost two years into this bullshit, and can now truly appreciate the sacrifices that my parents made for me. How the fuck did they deal with this then to come home to put up with my bullshit? I can't fathom the thought of doing what they did. And to see them enjoy their life now, as I'm all grown up -- I'd cry if it weren't for toxic masculinity.

So let's move on. I decide to surprise S___ at his house with J__ and V___ because all communication has ceased. I've had every reason to trust this guy, but one year can undo a lot of that trust. When we're almost there, I miss the first turn to the house. All good, though - what's another 2-3 minutes added to our journey? When we get there, a car parks up behind us. This woman watches J__ and I suss out the house. A toy car litters the front lawn, but everything else seems in order. The woman gets out of her car and asks if we need any help. I say that we're looking for S___. It turns out that S___ doesn't live here anymore -- we're speaking to his ex-wife! When she hears the year-long delay, she calls S___ on the spot. She puts me on the phone; it's gonna take another week. What the fuck. I repeatedly thank her and, as I leave, V__ asks if we got the ex-wife's number. We didn't, so we hurry back. Jacq is her name.

It may just be for the material good/prized possession that is my guitar, but I still can't believe our luck. If we arrived any earlier, I may have never got back my guitar. What do they say -- you make your own luck?

When I eventually left S___'s house with my guitar -- he said it had been "a cunt of a year" -- I wasn't mad. In spite of the justified anger over the lack of service, sympathy took over. And I suppose delay gratification is worth having. It was at this point that I decided to name my guitar "Jacq".