Ever since I was a child, I dreamt of learning to play the guitar. With time, this passion turned into a weevil, a gluttonous one that nested in my brain, grew up as I grew and shared my life.

My guitar weevil turned into a series of misfortune: whenever I saved enough for the guitar something would happen, and the money would go up in flames. For starters, when I was in school I saved my money for a whole year. During the summer vacation I broke the piggy bank; the amount was decent enough to buy a good guitar. But I went to play with the neighborhood kids, we played street football and instead of hitting the goal I hit the glass façade of the neighbor’s balcony. It rained down glass and insults. Our ball was stabbed. At night the neighbor came to our house and said that I broke his mother’s vase, and so the guitar turned into a vase.

When I was appointed as a traffic policeman I said I would buy a guitar with my first salary, but when I got home, my mom said that the water boiler in bathroom had exploded and ruined the ceramics. The guitar turned into ceramic tiles with musical notes.

Then I got married, and with my meager salary and the obscene price tag, the guitar turned into bread, yoghurt, eggs, treatment bills, diapers, milk boxes and small gifts for my wife.

Now, the children have grown up, most of them are married, and I am nearing retirement. The weevil is now dancing in my head. I will buy a guitar and a Mexican hat and play music for the rest of my life.

My wife said that she also has an old weevil in her head that nags her and wants to travel to Beirut.

We travelled to Beirut and on our first day I bought a guitar and I hugged it all the way from the store to the hotel.

I must have looked like an idiot but I was afraid that the guitar would jump out of my lap or would turn into something else, something that was not very interesting.

When I arrived at the hotel I did not wait to go up to my room. I sat on the big sofa in the reception, asked for a bottle of water, took a deep breath, and started playing my first melody on my guitar.

My fingers moved on the strings. A single move then everything exploded; the whole front glass of the hotel, vases and chandeliers- all of it exploded because of this unfortunate guitar!

In the hospital, when they heard my story they laughed and told me I was scammed: the guitar was made out of weevil-rotted wood.