The Front Row

I also remember a real "ballsy" one that happened to my wife's mother. She had saved and purchased after many years a Waterford crystal punch bowl and ladel, wiht the cups..all very expensive and bueatiful. A women in the church wanted to "borrow" the punch bowl set for her daughter's wedding. After much thought and kind of an unwilling stance, my mother-in law finally agreed and loaned out the punch bowl, ladel and cups. Weeks after the wedding was over, she tried to get the set back, but kept getting "fuzzy" answers..after my father-in law pressed it, the set got returned....it got returned wiht a "plastic", $3.75 ladel. They had broken the Waterford ladel. Needeless to say my mother-in law went nuts,,,but my wife's dad, being a great Christian guy told her to forget it, he would buy here a glass replacement ladel(worth several dollars). Now that took some rocks on the loanees part........

I lent a friend my 12 string Takamine acoustic guitar and told him "keep it for a while I don't play it much" that was 6 years ago. Last I heard he fled the state pisses me off thinking about it.

My father told me once that when you give money to your brother, don't expect repayment. Too many families break up over that scenario. Whenever I loan things out, I do so with a commitment from the borrower on a definite "return by" date. I have lost a power saw, lawn tools, picnic tables, card table and chairs and money to friends and family over the years. But I won't fight with my family over something that can be replaced and I seldom lend to friends anymore. Not worth the hassle to keep reminding someone that they have your stuff.

My dad used to loan out mechanic tools to friends and people close. It went all right for a while, but then they started to return things broken. Some didn't return at all. Has anyone ever looked up a price on mechanic tools? Yes, It's horrendously outrageous. Needless to say, no one comes by to borrow tools anymore. If anyone needs something done. It's done at my dad's body shop.

When I was getting out of the navy in 2001 I had a used car that I didn't want to pay to have sent back to Ohio. So I literally gave it to my best friend as long as he payed for the title. Car was probably worth 4-5 thousand. Nothing special, but I gave it to him. That same day before I bolted town I used the car to go to the store. On the way there I blew out one tire. We nearly came to fists in his front yard because he thought I should have to pay for a new tire! I gave you a freaking car for nothing!! I finally agreed to pay for half to get a new tire. I was not happy.

Another one comes to mind also---several years ago I bought a real nice and expensive Post Hole Digger after my first cheaper one busted off at the handles. One of my relatives asked to borrow it to dig some post holes for a fence. It was in great condition as I kept it nice, clean and wihout any rust or caked on dirt when not using it. As it is in life, we often forget about things..and a couple of years passed. One day I was looking for the digger and remember I had loaned it out....when I asked my relative about it, he said he had "returned it". Knowing that was not true, I pressed him and a couple of days later he said, he had found it and would bring it back. He had loaned it to a neighbor farmer who had it out in one of his barns. Needless to say, when I got it back it was rusted, caked wiht dirt and dinged up. Being a relative, again, my wife told me not to make a problem out of it as it was "only a post hole digger"...hey she is not a guy..we love our tools...ha ha...

Lent out my golf clubs recently to a co-worker. He returned them less all my good golf balls and rubber grips on my irons.

I make a habit of not lending or borrowing (something always goes wrong). I recently became lax and lent some things out, then I borrowed something from the same folks and i couldn't get it started. I spent alot of time & effort getting it fixed. They call that Karma. I'm back to not lending or borrowing. If I need something I save money and buy it myself.