Since I'm taking a statistics class this semester, I needed a decent calculator.
When the semester started, I dug through a basket of random electronics and came across a TI-86. I thought it was from when Scotty was in school, but as we discussed the calculator, he claimed it wasn't his, it was mine. I knew it wasn't mine because I've never owned a scientific calculator in my life!
...but I did borrow one in junior college for my algebra classes...
And that's when I realized that, for thirteen years, I've had someone's calculator, and I don't even remember whose it is!
Occasionally during my life, I've been a bad borrower.
There was the time in high school I borrowed a friend's dance shoes and never returned them. I kept them for a few years after graduation and then finally threw them away to purge myself of the guilt.
There was another time when I borrowed my cousin's copy of Write for College (apparently I've needed a lot of help in college) and never returned it (I took it to the thrift store last year) (cousin, if you're reading this and want your book back, let me know, and I'll buy you a new one).
And twice I've borrowed something from my in-laws (once a book and once a movie), and I've kept it for over a year, so I've snuck it back into their house and put it on the shelf as not to draw attention to how long I'd had it.
Overall, though, I'm a decent borrower. My worst fault is that I sometimes take too long to return things, but my track record is mostly clean. I try to not borrow things from people if I think I'll have difficulty in returning it.
However, I know some people who are terrible borrowers. In fact, I have two friends whom, if I let borrow something, I have to just consider it a gift to them, or I have to give them a date and time for when I will pick the item up from them, and then I have to text them a few reminders leading up to it.
So what kind of borrower are you? What has tainted your record? Do tell!
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3 comments:
I do good with things I borrow from people I don't know very well but I'm terrible about returning things to family and close friends. I think it's because I'm more worried about losing the trust of the people I don't know very well.
45 years ago, when I was in high school, I borrowed a gathering foot (for a sewing machine) from my young women's leader to work on a dress I was making. (I think I it was for a church dance festival.) It had a TON of gathering to be done and she graciously let me borrow her very expensive sewing machine accessory.
I have NO IDEA why I wouldn't have just given it back to her at the time. I came across it a couple of times in later years and always felt so guilty for not returning it. I haven't seen it for ages now.
She's been gone for quite awhile, but I still feel guilty about never returning it! The only good thing to come from it is that now I never, never borrow without immediately returning whatever it is when I'm done.
I still feel bad about it.
Funny you should write on this topic because I have something of YOURS that has been in my house for about three years. Crap. I'm probably one of the friends you can't lend things to.
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