For months, my neighbor Denise had been borrowing things from me.
It started with a ladder.
Then she needed my pressure washer, followed by a crock pot, a steamer, a cooler, and my roasting pan.
I usually didn’t mind helping her. We’d been neighbors for six years, and our families knew each other well. Our kids had played together when they were younger, and we’d even helped each other with small things around the house.
The problem was that Denise rarely returned anything in the condition she’d borrowed it.
My ladder came back covered in mud. The cooler smelled like fruit punch for days. My roasting pan came back with a dent.
Whenever I mentioned it, she always had an excuse.
“I was going to clean it.”
“Wasn’t that scratch already there?”
“The kids must have done it.”
I kept letting it go.
Then she asked for the one thing I should have refused from the beginning.
My stand mixer.
It wasn’t just a kitchen appliance to me. My mother had bought that cream-colored mixer in 1989. She used it almost every Sunday while I was growing up.
After she passed away, I kept it because hearing that familiar motor brought back memories of my childhood.
So when Denise asked to borrow it to make a cake, I hesitated.
“I’d rather not,” I told her. “It belonged to my mom.”
She promised she’d be extremely careful.
I still said yes.
A few days later, I found the mixer sitting outside my front door.
Denise hadn’t even knocked.
The bowl still had dried frosting stuck inside it. There was hardened cream around the machine, and the attachment hadn’t been washed.
I cleaned everything and plugged it in.
The mixer made a strange grinding sound.
Then it stopped.
I tried again.
Same thing.
The motor was damaged.
I went straight to Denise’s house.
When I told her what had happened, I expected an apology.
Instead, she shrugged.
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