"Borrowing" items

and not returning them amounts to theft - even if it does not quite fit the legal definition. 

The legal definition of theft involves "intention to permanently deprive". All too often there is no such intention. People simply "borrow" something. At the time they do so they have every intention of returning the object but, somehow, over time this does not happen. Perhaps the most common objects are books. 

I found a book recently on the Senior Cat's bookshelf. It once belonged to someone else. I actually phoned the person concerned and asked if they wanted it back. Thankfully the response was, "No, I actually gave that to your father. I couldn't find it and bought another one. When it turned up I gave that one to him."

Right. I haven't been able to find anything else on his shelves that rightfully belongs to anyone else. 

I have books on my shelves which once belonged to other people and libraries - but I have not "borrowed" them. I have bought them at legitimate book sales or they have been passed on to me. The only books currently in my possession which do not belong to me are library books which I have properly and legally borrowed from the local library and a book which I intend to return to the owner this coming weekend.  It always worries me until I return things belonging to other people. I do not like the responsibility of caring for their things.

When the Senior Cat went into the residence he now lives in he wanted people to go on using his shed, the tools and machines in it. He told various people he knows that they were welcome to use it. The retired carpenter has been in and out to borrow clamps to fix some antique chairs for his wife. He let me know he was coming, what he was borrowing and then that he had returned them. Good. The priest from the Senior Cat's church has been in and out a number of times. A former occupational therapist he has taken small pieces of timber to do little things for the parish. He has used the clamps too and things like the drill press. That's fine. He always lets me know if he is around and he has been showing the Senior Cat what he is doing. 

A member of the church congregation has been doing some work for the cathedral. He has come and taken some of the timber that the Senior Cat has put aside for that purpose. I haven't been around when he has come but he has left messages to let me know he has been in.

There are two other people who know where the key is - one a long time friend of the Senior Cat who knows the shed almost as well as he does. The other is another friend of many years who has been a woodworker in the past but is gradually ceasing to do it.

Why am I saying all of this? Because Brother Cat is here to start clearing the shed and taking some of the things off to his own home. He and the Senior Cat have discussed this over the past few years - how and when it should be done and where my brother will store things.  And when my brother looked in the shed to start the job he found the small lathe had gone, the one the Senior Cat used to be able to sit at and turn pens and buttons and other small objects. Someone has unbolted it and removed it from the bench.

Yesterday I made discreet inquiries from people who might have "borrowed" it. I made sure they knew how upset the Senior Cat would be when my brother told him it was missing. We know it has to be someone who knew how to get into a very securely locked shed. I left phone messages and emails. 

Only one person has not been in touch. I hope very much he can tell us where the lathe is....