When I break something I borrow I fix it or replace it.
When I break it. Active voice. When it breaks because it has reached the end of its service life I typically feel responsible for the reasons Grav, Classic, and Sexobon have mentioned and offer to pay for it. That said, I would expect the lender to recognize the difference between failure of a part caused by 4-wheeling while towing a bulldozer with a 2 ton passenger car, and the failure of a seal due to old age, (tangent- WTF? $1000 for a seal? Weren't water pumps, back in the day, a $75 replacement job? I remember many times people saying thank god it was just the water pump. /tangent) acknowledge that and let me off the hook. If I may draw an analogy; if you had asked an elderly friend or neighbor to come over to your house and help catalog your stamp collection and they passed away from just being really fucking old would that put you on the hook for murder or manslaughter? Of course not. Maybe if you forced them somehow to hand dig a new septic tank in 110 degree heat, under the lash, and they died...
The real issue, unfortunately, is that your step daughter-in-law sounds like a super beeee-otch
Quote:
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"So what have you done to our car?"
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(seriously, what a cuntish attitude AND plain-old rude and disrespectful. Who talks to people that way?) and your stepson sounds like he's about 14-15 years old and unable to see things in a larger context. When this sort of shit happens to me I try to look at it as tuition for a class on how to avoid future problems with this a'hole again. Although a lot of money up front, it's a small cost in the long run.
I am reminded of that glurgy bit about the little boy who gave his mother a bill for the chores he had done around the house, she paid the bill and gave him one of her own listing all the things the ideal fairy-tale mother does for her son and under the column for charges she put n/c. In this case though I'd be tempted to put down the dollar value of my time, but that would be just as childish as him so, no.
Finally, perhaps what is underlying all of this, even more so than the money, is the disappointment you must feel in your step son and daughter-in-law. It is sad to see family members behaving this way.