Friday, 28 February 2014

Of ice cream and bottles.

If you look at empty bottles, do you have any idea that it will turn into an ice cream? Imagine that you are living in the 60's and 70's, empty bottles could be the answer to a free "ice cream potong". The bottles can be from  any type or shape with the exception to the clear glass ketchup bottle. My guess is that the ketchup bottles  not suitable for refilling with "Budu" or Soy sauce.You need 2 standard bottles or one large bottle for an exchange with one piece of ice cream.


One day we discovered that we could bypass the ice cream vendor by selling the empty bottles directly to a soy sauce factory in our village ( Kg Guchil) for a better pricing, 5 cent for each bottle or an equivalent to one ice cream. Now, we could make 100% profit by going direct to the manufacturer. That was the  beginning of our small enterprise..


Armed with the good news, me and my friends started collecting empty bottles around Kg Guchil and send them directly to the soy sauce plant for an exchange with some pocket money. The activities were done only during weekends.  Later we discovered that the area surrounding the factory was only protected with zinc fences with about 6 inches of exposed bottom which revealed our gold mine, empty bottles.  They were already cleaned and stacked outside the main building of the factory for use in the production. Walla, naughty ideas came to us and we started pulling out bottles from the bottom of the fence and went straight to the front door to sell the bottles back to the factory. Good profit without having to work hard!.


After few rounds of "cheating/stealing" from the factory yard, we felt guilty and stop doing it altogether.  Back then, we still indulged in our favorite ice cream but we were no longer organizing the empty bottles collection project and if there was such barter trade, it was done on individual basis. Have i talked about ice cream tikam? 

Sungai Ku........

Sungai negeri ku mengalir lesu Membawa lum pur dan debu Melihatnya sungguh terharu Perang kuning menusuk kalbu ...