My Neighbor Talked Me Into Lending Her My Late Mom's Mixer — When She Broke It, Didn't Even Bother to Wash It, and Dumped It on My Porch, I Decided She Needed a Lesson
My neighbor Marlene has borrowed about ten things from me this year.
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It started with my ladder in the spring. Then the pressure washer. Then it moved into my kitchen — the crock pot, the steamer, a cooler, my good roasting pan.
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They came back late, or dirty, or missing a lid. Never with a word about it.
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Last Tuesday she asked for my mixer.
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It's a KitchenAid, the heavy old kind, cream-colored. My mother bought it in 1989 and used it every Sunday until she couldn't stand long enough anymore. It's the one thing of hers I still use.
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I said no. I actually said the word.
"Marlene, that one I'd rather not lend out. It was my mom's."
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She laughed like I'd made a joke. "I'll be so careful. It's one cake."
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She was still standing there. My daughter, Piper, was watching from the porch steps.
And I heard myself say, "Fine."
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Saturday morning I found it on my porch.
Not handed to me. Not knocked on the door.
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Sitting on the boards by the mat where anyone walking past could have taken it.
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There was cream dried into the seam where the head meets the body. Yellow, cracking, four days old.
She hadn't rinsed it.
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I plugged it in. The motor made a sound I have never heard it make in thirty-six years.
I unplugged it and stood there with my hand still on the switch.
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Then I walked across the grass and knocked on her door. I wasn't even angry yet.
I honestly thought she'd been embarrassed — that's why she'd left it and gone.
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