K's Birthday Gift

I have been a Hanson fan since 1997. Although I instantly became a fan summer of that year (May), it was in July that I bought their Middle of Nowhere cassette tape. It took a while before I bought their album, yes, because my allowance was just enough and I still asked around if the album was good. A classmate, who has very high standards told me she listened to the album and found it worthy to buy, so I finally went to the music store the soonest time I was able to save up around 100 or 120 pesos for the cassette tape. Buying the CD didn't really cross my mind as it was really expensive... but December that year, my dad gave me 1000 worth SM Gift Certificate as his Christmas gift for me, which I used to buy my Hanson's Middle of Nowhere CD and a copy of Seventeen Magazine - with Hanson on the cover.



I was cleaning my room last month when I opened my CD box. Seeing the Hanson CDs  I collected over the years was nostalgic, but seeing my Middle of Nowhere CD made me feel bad. It had lots of flaws because this wasn't its original case - I accidentally dropped the original one and it smashed into pieces. If you take a look at the upper right corner, you'll see the sticker with white lines...that's because I took out the  sticker from the original case and stuck it here.

The back cover was missing, too, because my growing love for Hanson wanted me to collect different related stuff, and when brother came home with a handheld scanner, I took out the back cover for scanning - so I can print it and use it as a book cover. I couldn't remember what happened as to why I wasn't able to put it back, but yes, I just lived with the fact that the back cover was already missing.



Inside were more flaws - some tear on the inlay and some scotch tape residue on Taylor's face. For my very first CD (ever), it had a very unfortunate consequences, but I love it, of course.

A few days before my birthday (13 May), I saw a post on Hanson Philippines Facebook Group about a very affordable Middle of Nowhere CD. I remembered my own CD, so it prompted me to check different sites to check for it. I was able to see a very affordable one on Ebay Philippines, but when I checked Ebay UK, I was able to find an available Middle of Nowhere CD at £1. I told my friend K about it and told me it was the starting bid, but if no one bid aside from us, we can get the CD at that price. I told him we can go beyond £3 if needed, but if the bids went beyond that, I will just buy the one sold at Ebay Philippines. At first I told K to have it shipped on his home address and he can just take it here when he travels back to the Philippines, but he told me that can be uncertain, so asking the seller, he told me he can have it shipped to my address. I knew shipping costs can be quite expensive, but he told me he will take care of it, so all was good.


Great news was that no other person made a bid on the CD, so we (or K) got it for 99 pence. K gave my address to the seller and told him the CD will reach me in 10 days (14 May). On 28 May, my brother handed me a paper from the Post Office. It surprised me because when I had my Hanson's "The Walk" CD shipped to me, it was delivered here in our house. Now I have to get it at the Post Office and I seriously don't like the red tape at the Post Office.

Yesterday, I went to claim the CD. Staff asked me to pay 40 pesos for the customs inspection fee and when they opened the envelope and saw it was a CD they started asking me about it... I immediately became teenager feeling giddy about it. Normally, the post office will compute certain taxes needed to be paid, but when they saw that the value of the CD was only £1 and the postage was £3.86, they just let me take home the CD without paying for anything more. Happiness!




So now, I have two Hanson Middle of Nowhere CDs. I still am keeping my original one - for sentimental reasons. Now all I need to own is the Shout it Out CD (yep, I still don't have it) and my Hanson CD collection (not including the singles) is complete.