09/01/2026
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 Denise has borrowed about ten things from me this year.
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.
They came back late, or dirty, or missing a lid. Never with a word about it.
Last Tuesday she asked for my mixer.
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.
I said no. I actually said the word.
"Denise, that one I'd rather not lend out. It was my mom's."
She laughed like I'd made a joke. "I'll be so careful. It's one cake."
She was still standing there. My daughter was watching from the porch steps.
And I heard myself say, "Fine."
Saturday morning I found it on my porch.
Not handed to me. Not knocked on the door.
Sitting on the boards by the mat where anyone walking past could have taken it.
There was cream dried into the seam where the head meets the body. Yellow, cracking, four days old.
She hadn't rinsed it.
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.
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.
She opened the door holding her coffee.
"Oh — yeah," she said. "Honestly, you should buy a new one. That thing is ancient. It quit halfway through my cream and I had eleven people sitting in my dining room with no cake."
She took a sip.
"So thanks for that ruined night, I guess."
That was the moment I understood she'd done it on purpose, and that she didn't feel guilty about it at all.
So the next morning, I came up with the plan to teach her a nice lesson.