09/01/2026
My Neighbor Convinced Me to Lend Her My Late Mom’s Mixer — When She Broke It, Didn’t Even Bother Washing It, and Left It on My Porch, I Decided She Needed a Lesson
My neighbor Denise has borrowed around ten things from me this year.
It began 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, 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 for long 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 belonged to my mom."
She laughed like I'd told 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 back to me. No knock on the door.
Sitting on the boards beside the mat where anyone passing by could have taken it.
There was cream dried into the seam where the head meets the body. Yellow, cracked, four days old.
She hadn't even rinsed it.
I plugged it in. The motor made a noise I had never heard it make in thirty-six years.
I unplugged it and stood there with my hand still resting on the switch.
Then I crossed the grass and knocked on her door. I wasn't even angry yet.
I honestly thought she'd been embarrassed — that was why she'd left it and gone.
She opened the door holding her coffee.
"Oh — yeah," she said. "Honestly, you should get a new one. That thing is ancient. It stopped 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 evening, I guess."
That was the moment I realized she'd done it on purpose and didn't feel guilty about it at all.
So the next morning, I came up with a plan to teach her a nice lesson