Borrowing

My son and I have this ongoing argument that I quite honestly thought we had resolved last summer, but apparently not.  He loves living in a neighborhood.  He really like hanging out with the older guys and talking shop.  He is a little man.  He likes to work.  He likes anything mechanical. He has grown up around his dad and all of his dad's friends hanging out at the shop with a lot of construction guys who own businesses.  He has witnessed his dad and his dad's friends borrowing equipment and tools from each other.  He thinks its the normal way of life.  Just borrow what you need from whoever has it.

Well in the case of his dad and his dad's friends, yes they do that.  They borrow things from each other all of the time. BUT.  They know how to use it, how to take care of it, how to repair it, or have the money to replace it if they damage it beyond repair.

My son thinks that whatever my neighbors may have that he wants to borrow will be fine to borrow.  What he does not understand is that his mother is full of foolish pride.  It embarasses me for him to even consider asking someone to borrow anything.  And the flip side of all of this is that if he damages whatever it is, I cannot afford to replace it.  He just doesn't get it.  Tonight we battled for several hours over this as he wanted to borrow our neighbor's roller to roll our lawn with.  I love that he likes to work.  I love that he is ambitious.  But it upsets me in a way that he just doesn't understand.  How do I make him understand this?