Borrower No More

I'm done borrowing. It's too frustrating.

I don't have a good track record with borrowing. I'm going to have to buy Josh a new copy of a book that he lent me because I stepped on it one morning getting out of bed bending the cover and the first 10 pages back.

Josh is very particular with his books. He's one of those guys that doesn't break the spine when he reads. All of his books look new --except for all those meticulously printed notes on the back of the cover.

I'll buy another copy of the book to give back -- no big deal because I like the book and probably would have purchased myself a copy anyway. But I have to recopy all of those notes. Neatly. In really tiny print. Criminy.

Josh should know better than to lend to me.

One day a couple of years ago, I discovered my youngest son, Griffin, listening to a Coldplay CD. Wow, I thought. That's interesting. "Where did this come from?"

He showed me the DVD case - it was a DVD/CD combo, Coldplay LIVE. The case (with two empty disc holders, lonely and dusty) was in the bottom of his closet toy box. Hmmm, I thought. "Where's the DVD?"

It was in the toy box too. Nastily scratched up. Basically it was a dead DVD -- gone the way of many a Barney and Disney DVD, I'm sure, left too long in the unsupervised possession of a non-adult.

Now, you must believe this: I had absolutely no recollection of where this Coldplay DVD/CD had come from. I did not remember that Josh had lent it to me, probably many months earlier, in order to broaden my musical horizons (you see why I'm not responsible enough to lend to?). To his credit, patient man that he is, Josh had never mentioned the non-return of said borrowed Coldplay (he is a big Coldplay fan -- that must've rankled some). I certainly did not know how Griffin came to be in possession of it, although he probably knows Coldplay music better than I do now.

So anyway, after a trip to Best Buy to purchase a new Coldplay DVD/CD and the embarrassing return of said Coldplay to Josh, you'd think I would know better than to borrow (from him) again.

Recently, I noticed another borrowed book in my collection. This one belongs to Kelly. I think he lent it to me in 2003 or so. I thought "Maybe he's forgotten about it". Then I saw his Rambo DVD in the movie cache. Oops.

Kelly, I'm sure has at least one of my DVD's though, so I don't feel so bad about that one. I can't find my copy of Vantage Point. Dude, do you have it?

I once lent a book to Kelly's wife, Rebekah. It was a great book called Same Kind of Different as Me. I'll lend it to you if you want.

It's a little wrinkled and poofy though. Rebekah dropped it in the bathtub.

Now, understand this, 'cause I don't want her to feel bad about it -- she offered to replace it. I told her not to worry about it. It was just so darn funny. I didn't know that people read in the tub.

Apparently the book-dropping-in-the-tub has happened to Rebekah before because she has several wrinkled, poofy books. I can't look at my copy of Same Kind of Different as Me without cracking up. Now, for those of us not married to Rebekah, we must stop imagining this scene and move on.

Last spring I lent my 10 horsepower combination tree shredder and leaf mulcher to one of my neighbors and it broke. I had been using the thing for 2 years with no problem. He broke it in the first 5 minutes. He felt bad. I felt bad. It wasn't worth it.

He offered to pay for the repair but I wouldn't let him. It was probably ready to break, and I felt like I had just inadvertently set him up. How could you ever know?

Ben Franklin is right.

So what about you? Any good borrowing or lending tales to share?