What pisses me off the most about that guy who has had my baseball glove all these years is that it’s in a box. He’s not even using it. If you’re not using it, you should return it….return it….return it…..return it. I’m shoulding, I know. What brings the shoulding to my attention is that echo. Whenever I hear the echo it’s time to take a little inventory. What things do I have that belong to other people that I may or may not still be using. Whether I am using them or not, they ought to go back to their rightful owner.
I would return them, but like the guy with my baseball glove, I never see these people or I see them very rarely – once a decade. Two decades maybe? Too rarely, for me to keep their belongings in my car so that when I do drive back to New York and bump into them serendipitously, I’ll be able to return their stuff. I bet some people don’t even know I still have their stuff. They probably wrote off their possessions once they loaned them to me. I wish I could just call their names out and they’d come and get their things. A special carrier pigeon could fly in my window, I’d stuff it’s backpack with the borrowed object, and it would deliver it in mint condition. However, some things are not still in mint condition.
Mom? I still have two of your beach towels. They’ve been washed so many times the colors have faded. They are not at all in the condition that they were when I borrowed them. In fact, we have had them for so long they’ve been demoted to rags Skye uses to check the oil. Do you still want them back? No, right? Check that one off the list.
Kathleen Kelly? I have your grandmother’s porcelain nut dish with the hydrangeas painted on it that you left behind when you moved out of our apartment to be with that dork and stuck me with all the utilities. Oh, wait. You did pay for half even though you weren’t living there. My bad! Your dish remains unchipped and has been a fine coin collector on my dresser.
College of St. Rose Library? I still have the book City Life by Donald Barthelme. I never got past the second chapter and I held onto it thinking I should finish it, the way I should finish a bowl of brussels sprouts even though they smell like toxic ass. It wasn’t the book, really. It was me. I, as the reader, need to be seduced into reading beyond the first chapter, lest my attention wander onto another dashing author. Perhaps a taller, more robust author. I didn’t abandon City Life. City Life left me high and dry. But this isn’t about my literary needs. This is about you and your book that I haven’t returned. I hope you haven’t replaced it. Or kept adding interest onto my tab. You’re not still sending reminder cards to my old addresses are you?
Sheri Brethel? I have three of your books that you bravely loaned me. I am still reading one. The other two I will probably never get to and should return to you at tap class that I keep blowing off. Damn it!
Janet? I have one of your camping mugs from our last campout, and a fork. I only use the fork as a last resort. It doesn’t get used as often as any of my other forks. I’m keeping it nice. Really, I can’t stand using it. The prongs are bent and it doesn’t pick up anything. I promise I will remember to pack it when we go camping next summer. You know me!
Sr. Joan Lesczynski? It has been so long that I have had your book Walden Pond you have since left the nunnery. You changed completely. I am still the same. Please forgive me, if you still do that part of the Catholic thing.
David Herr? I apologize for keeping your salad spoon for so long. If it makes you feel any better, I think of you every time I use it. I still refer to it as yours. Of all the things I have that belong to other people, your spoon that you like so well, is the one I feel guiltiest about because I have no intention of returning it. I love it so much, I will avoid visiting you for the rest of my life because I don’t want to have to return your salad spoon.
Pam? I left that John Mayer CD on your porch when I found it while cleaning out my garage. Sorry I had it so long. We aren’t friends anymore. I didn’t leave you a note when I dropped it off, not to put the nail in the coffin on our dead friendship, but because I didn’t have any paper. If I had, I would have written a nice note because really and truly I do miss you.
Karma? I see how you roll. I ‘fessed up to everyone about my lousy return policy. Now does that get me any closer to getting my baseball glove back or do I have to drive back to New York and return these items from that portion in my life when I was extremely into permanent borrowing, the way a certain baseball glove hoarder is into permanently not searching out which box he put my glove in, and mailing it back to me?
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Loved the Brussel Sprouts comment; it needs to be framed up on the fridge.
I still miss that cute black bikini with yellow typewriter font letters all over it that Darra Chapman borrowed from me in high school, even though I know it probably wouldn’t fit me now. (Okay, that’s a lie. I was totally chubby in high school.) If you happen to be in Phoenix and run into her, pass it on, okay?) I also miss the copper chain link bracelet that Tim Thomas borrowed and never gave back. I want my bracelet, Tim!
I hope you get your glove back.
remind me if I ever stay with you to come completely empty handed and never take the clothes off my back.
Can I borrow your Chapstick, Jessica?
Ok, I still have one of Harriet’s books from over a year ago – I can say that since she’s out of town on a knitting boondoggle.
I realized that by reading your blog I feel like I’ve been keeping in touch with you when in reality I’ve hardly seen you – especially at tap. Please come back to tap! We won’t point and laugh at you. We’ll be laughing with you – there is lots of laughter. Miss
Bonnie changes things the minute it looks like anyone is catching on, so you won’t be behind. Just think of the material for your blog that you are missing!
I can’t stand having other people’s stuff at my place. I very rarely borrow anything and if I do it goes back as soon as humanely possible – even if I have to go way out of my way to return it. I also hate “lending” things. I usually just give them whatever the thing is they want to borrow. I think I might do a post on this myself some time….hmmmm….
I’m all ready to “hold” the glove until your next sojourn up to the mountains…
Funny how you brought this up though, my mother and sisters tend to be the worst sort of “lenders”…
Examples:
Sister #1: Thought it would be great if her daughter would be kind enough to give MY daughter doll clothes for her “American Girl” Dolls (considering I was going through a divorce and didn’t have the cash available I graciously accepted)…. FIVE YEARS LATER she wants them back! (I don’t even think my daughter knows where they are)
Sister #2: (Yeah she’s got twin boys, and two girls, and likes to dress them up like some sort of Mormon Von Trapp Family Singer outfit), So after her girls outgrew their matching winter outfits she sent them out here for MY girls to wear. (Once again NO Terms were discussed)… My girls wore them for a year, then they were carefully boxed up and stored in the wasteland known as my attic… She wanted them back 3 years later!!! (For what??? did you pick up “My Buddy” and “Kid Sister” Dolls to dress them in?)
And then there is the Matriarch… the most notorious of “Indian Givers” (Ok, I can sort of say that considering I am related to a portion of a Lakota Sioux Tribe)….
She gave me a Nordic Track after upgrading hers, I used it for many years (hooking up a PS2 controller to the thing so I could play games whilst X-Country Skiing)….
Last Weekend I got the question…”Do you still happen to have that Nordic Track? There’s a Friend of mine in the North Country who could use it!”… I hate to tell her that I’ve since traded that Nordic Track in for a Futon that we’re currently using as a living room couch, but seriously… This woman “GAVE” an Accordian that I was planning on using for my equipment list (nothing strikes up a bar band like Polka!) to some gypsy when she was travelling through Romania last year!!!
Why oh Why can’t they understand that “lending” isn’t “Giving!”… I’ve lent many different books to my closest circle of friends in somewhat of a cyclical library system we have, if someone is looking for a certain book, we just call each other and in the matter of a day or two it’s back in our posession…
Sharing Vs. Giving folks…. There IS a Difference…
ok… need coffee…
Hi Amy!
Well let me just say it was lovely to discover your blog. I read it from start to finish and never ceased to marvel at your amazing prowess at making me snort with laughter.
I work a job that involves 12 hour graveyard shifts sitting at a desk and am always in search of new entertainment. I’m happy I found you.
Oh Please Baseball glove man, RETURN the damn glove already!!! Sheesh… How freakin hard is it? Put it in a box and MAIL it already…. There, how was that? Hope it works for you!