Monday, December 20, 2004
Broken Windows
Back in the days when we were kids, we used to play outside, in the streets, chasing tin cans used as hockey pucks, kickballs, baseballs, etc. Every summer some kid would throw the ball too hard or hit the ball too hard and it would sail through the air and crash through one of the neighbor’s windows. One summer it was my brother’s turn to be the culprit and he walked home, head down, to tell his parents what he had done. He had broken the neighbor’s window.
What would happen is the kid would get in trouble, sometimes get grounded, have extra chores to do, always had to go and apologize to the neighbors and the parents of the kid who broke the window, would pay for a new window regardless of the fact that the whole thing was a total mistake.
That’s called having manners and taking responsibility.
The same holds true to this day for anything that you might break, lose, destroy, etc. If you are using your roommate’s VCR or DVD player and you break it, you are responsible for replacing it or getting it fixed.
If you borrow a friend’s sweater and tear it or get a stain on it, you are responsible for getting it cleaned or fixed.
If you throw away a $250 piece of dental equipment, you offer to pay for the new one.
When you borrow something and ruin it or you lose something or you throw something away that was never yours to begin with, it doesn’t matter one damn bit if it was an accident or not. You pay to fix or replace the item. And by replace I don’t mean drive the person to the sport’s store and tell them, “You can get a mouthguard for a few bucks here”, because mouthguards are absolutely, positively NOT replacements for $250 nightguards. The reason for that is because both are designed quite differently. A mouthguard is to be used while you are awake, alert, active while you are playing some sport. It is meant to be worn a few minutes at at time. Nightguards are specially molded to your teeth with a high quality plastic that expands in hot water and then, after being placed over your teeth, starts to cool and become snug to your teeth. So that it stays in all night long. So that it doesn’t fall out of your mouth while you sleep or fall off your teeth and wake you up choking you. And of course the entire point behind the nightguard is you wear one if you grind your teeth at night so that in the future you don’t have to get crowns. And even though this may sound like preventative maintenance, insurance companies don’t cover them. It’s all out of pocket expense. It doesn’t matter how many ways you sand or cut or trim a mouthguard, it is not and will never be a replacement for a nightguard.
If you have any manners at all, you tell the person that you’ll pay for the replacement or you go out and get a replacement of equal or higher quality, never less quality, that shows absolute total lack of class and manners and respect, and if the person doesn’t already know, you tell them the truth.
As an example, if you borrowed a sweater and spilled something on it, you go and buy that exact same sweater and bring both back to the person OR, you tell the person and offer to buy a new one, their choice.
But the very last thing you do is ruin, destroy, break, lose or toss something that belongs to someone else and give them the, “oh well” attitude about the entire situation. If you are someone like that, you are not someone with any class, any respect for yourself or others nor do you have any sense of value towards people or their things.
And that pretty much says just about everything about you as a person.
