Borrow / Lend Record Keeper

For my ninth birthday, I received a copy of Little Women from my best friend, Margie. Soon after I finished reading the book, another friend, Patsy, asked if she could borrow it. Of course, I loaned it to her. I had long since forgotten about the episode when Patsy returned it forty-three years later. After her mother passed away, she found the musty book with Margie's birthday message to me stored in her mother's attic.
The whereabouts of another book, Dr. Chase's Recipes, a tattered but treasured read, remained a mystery for years. My husband felt certain it was somewhere in our house; however, repeated searches yielded no success. After two decades, a friend returned it. She said her daughter had discovered it amongst her belongings and remembered she had borrowed it all those years before.
These two incidents, and many others, made me wonder how many misplaced or 'lost' items were actually loaned to friends and never returned. Within the past three months, I've noted ten items I have loaned; to date, six have been returned.
For those of us who tend to share, it's difficult to heed Shakespeare's advice: "Neither a borrower nor a lender be." If you are, having a record serves as a reminder. It is also pleasurable to reminisce about those items that have touched so many lives. Enjoy.
Flo Dunn Balliet