I know the feeling!
And no one talked about scratches. The loaners don’t know how much money a light and I handle them so carefully that I have 3-4 year old convoys that I used daily and not a tiny scratch on them or missing anodizing. And I can say to anybody that is brand new and they belive. And I loan it for a day and finding 3 dents and 4-5 places where the anodizing missing showing bare aluminum and the lens has fingerprints and dust…
So I have SK68, Zanflare F2 and Eagle Eye X2R for them and that is all.
Same here. And that’s why if anyone asks to borrow a light, I’ll tell ’em to rack off.
Same with books. I used to get paperback tekkie books, databooks, handbooks, etc., and keep them in pristine condition. Apply that clear vinyl stick-on sheeting on the covers to keep them from getting worn on the edges. Keep them looking just off the bookshelf, if not off the presses.
Loan it to some putz for a day, and they come back looking like fæcal matter. Dog-eared pages, left resting open but face-down so now the pages have a perma-curl to them, cracked-open spine, nasty, nasty, nasty. They treat ’em like a daily newspaper, to be used and thrown out afterwards.
Never, ever, ever again.
I remember the same with vinyl LPs. I was always careful to never ever touch the surface, edges and centre only. Never lowered the needle by hand. After decades of use my records looked brand new. Loaned an LP out to a good friend while she was in mourning over the loss of her husband, and after a week it looked like she had used sandpaper and a chisel all over it.
Mine never went that far. I’d get a new album, clean the surface, play it once with an antistatic brush attached to the head (yet still balanced to maybe 1.0g-1.5g) to scoop up any stray dust, and set levels on my cassette deck, then the 2nd play would be recorded on TDK SAs or SA-Xes. Repeat for side B.
All my albums probably never saw more than 5-6 plays per side.
So needless to say, no one would ever so much as touch any of my albums. I’d lend out a cassette, or better just cook another copy, but that’s it.
What’s amazing is all these daytime judge shows, where one idiot lends another idiot his car, and hijinx ensue.
Hehe…I know that feeling too.
A friend of mine once asked me to borrow and try my Klarus XT11S for a weekend in the woods.
He always liked it much but when I carefully started to tell him the specs and some battery warnings, I suddenly saw a strange maniac smile on his face….“…you say waterproof down to 2 meters ?”. :smiling_imp:
You know how it ended…I lent him the flashlight and almost couldn’t sleep those days… 
Flashlight came back intact and without a scratch.
So far nobody want to borrow flashlight from me, so I don’t face such issue lol.
You may have alot of friends soon talking like that around here lol!
My family use 1xAA, 2xAA, 2xAAA and 3xAAA lights with NiMH…I use the 3,7V ((although my father has appropriated my Armytek Doberman, I have placed a protected Fenix 3400 inside it)