Posted by judy lavin on April 15, 2004 at 14:49:46:
In Reply to: ettiquette posted by Linda Roberts on April 15, 2004 at 13:23:54:
Hi Linda,
That's a tough one--especially because it was an accident, costs so much money and a friendship is involved.
First of all, can the guitar be fixed so you don't have to replace it? (maybe the friend's parents could pay to fix the instrument? If not, you could.) And, secondly, did you mention to the friend's family that their child accidentally sat on your son's guitar?
If I were you, I would mention to the friend's parents what happened, if you haven't done that already. Then,if the guitar needs to be replaced, and the parents don't offer to pay for the damages (which they should do) I might ask them to split the difference with me--you would each pay half of the cost.
If they won't--which would be pretty tacky, but I don't know their financial circumstances--I would replace the guitar. I assume you want your son to continue playing the instrument so it's in his best interest to have a guitar. We can't always make everything fair or equal and you don't want to penalize your son for a mistake that occurred.
I would also make certain that the new guitar was put away in it's case, so that no one could sit on it again.
Good luck with the outcome.
Judy