"...NOR A LENDER BE..."

You saw the above photo in a recent post, but it's worth showing again because of a rather interesting fact.  See that bottle of COCA COLA on the mantlepiece?  It ain't!  A bottle of COKE that is.  In actual fact it's a radio (which I still have today) , bought in my local CO-OP store back in the early '80s.  Looking at it reminds me of an event which took place in the bedsit room above the one in the photo, back in early '85, so in the absence of anything better to write about, I may as well share it with you now.

A woman and her boyfriend took the room above mine for a short time, and one day, while her man was out, she asked me if she could borrow my radio.  Now, I've got to be honest, I don't like lending things, mainly because folk tend not to look after other people's possessions, and what followed is a prime example of this.  I lent her my radio (reluctantly) and she took it upstairs, but a little while later I had occasion to ask her something, so went up to her room and chapped the door.  When I went in, she had the radio resting on top of a calor-gas heater, but it was sitting at the front with almost half of it over the edge of the heater - where it would've caught the rising heat and eventually, being plastic, warped as a result.

Well, I wasn't too pleased, but hiding my annoyance at her stupidity, I moved it into the centre of the heater's top, saying that it would be better there.  I have a vague memory of her saying that she was finished with it anyway and me taking it back downstairs to my room, but possibly I might've gone out for a while first and taken it back when I returned.

However, what a cretin.  It was almost as if she was trying to damage it on purpose, because what sensible person would balance anything over the edge of anything, never mind a calor-gas heater?  From that point on, I resolved never to lend anything out again, and with one possible exception, I never did.  That one exception was a book, though it's possible that occurred before the incident with the radio - I'm no longer sure which came first.

On that occasion, a woman I knew asked to borrow a book of mine.  I explained that I'd only let her if she promised to look after it and return it in the same condition.  Yes, of course she would, she was always very careful with things and I could rely on her to handle it with care.  What a fool I was for believing her.  When the book was returned, it was dog-eared, with ring marks from the bottom of a wet cup on the cover, corners folded over to mark her place, the spine was cracked, and it absolutely reeked of cigarette smoke.  If she'd been a guy I'd have punched her lights out!  As is typical of stupid, careless people, she couldn't understand why I was annoyed with her.

Have you ever lent anything out to anyone, only to regret doing so when it was returned?  Tell all in the comments section, frantic ones!

Posted in: Cartoons