Lending CDs and books

I lent my Jupiter Cafe CD (Thermal and a Quarter) to someone that I'd dated a couple of times. She never gave it back.

She had a book of mine, Michael Crichton's Travels (a fabulous book), never got that one back either. The TAAQ CD, I can buy again. The book, it's not been available in bookstores. I check every time I go. I'll check on Amazon.com. Sniff!

Note to all of you lenders out there:Never, ever lend stuff to people you're dating. No exceptions.

I lost a Mark Knopfler CD (Sailing to Philadelphia) and another amazing CD Friday Nights in San Francisco (McLaughlin, Al Di Meola, and Paco Di Lucia) because I lent them to a friend. Bread's Greatest Hits to another friend, never got that one back either. Lost touch with both of them. I'll buy the CDs and the books eventually but I'm really careful about lending now-a-days.

The thing is that I too did take someone's books and I never returned them. Twice.

The first incident happened when I was just out of (high) school. I got these comics from a friend and I returned some but somehow some of them I never got around to returning and I lost touch with that friend.

Then, there was this book by C S Lewis, The Great Divorce, which a friend in the US lent me and I somehow never returned his book. Again, lost contact. I gave it away to a friend when I was returning back to India.

I still feel bad about what I did. Maybe someday I'll get to meet those two people and return their books, or buy them a real nice dinner. Maybe I won't even get an opportunity. Maybe my books and CDs not being returned is payback for what I did. Yeah, I'll take it, but it hurts.

The books you own and CDs you own, they grow on you and you start to care about them. (Yes, I know they are inanimate things and I know that I am partially crazy.)

I'd never lend a book to someone who'd give it back to me with curry stains. You have to be careful about who you lend your books to. I still take risks and give books to people I've never lent before. I tell them: If you deface my books or something happens to them, I'll hunt you down and make sure you burn in the fires of book-haters hell. Something like that anyway.

So, if you ever borrow a book or a CD from me, as Robert De Niro says (Meet the Parents), I'll be watching you.