Yeah, I was being a bit facetious. I didn't catch that last part where you said all your friend were shooting Canon- hence, the problem of not being able to borrow a lens. But hey, at your record of dropping lenses, maybe they wouldn't want you borrowing one anyway???

Can you rent one for the job? Dunno what's around where you live, but even for my Sony you can rent lenses from a few online places. Might be fun to try out a 300 2.8 for a couple of days... but even renting one of those would cost some $$.

I had my Sony w/ the Ziess 16-80 fall out of my Nissan Xterra to hard packed dirt one day, luckily the lens cap was on, and the only damage was a couple of small scratches on the cap, the hood (was reversed), and a bit on the outside of the lens. I was ticked, because my wife set it on her bag in the front seat floor area of the passenger side of the car. I opened the door- out came the camera. Of course it was my fault for opening the door.

BM