When I went to the church sale on Saturday with my Aunt Joan, I found the most unusual mixer I'd ever seen. You can't tell from this picture but the base is actually triangular.
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When I went to put it in the trunk of Joan's car, I noticed on the cover of the instruction manual (yes, it still has the instruction manual!) that there was a blender that went with the unit as well.
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When I'd paid for my items, the woman who was tallying my order had mentioned that this had been her mother's appliance, so I went back inside to ask her if the blender part was still on a table somewhere in the sale and I'd missed it.
Immediately, she remembered she did have it in her basement but had forgotten to bring it to the sale. Without missing a beat, she asked for my name and phone number so she could call me when she'd found it so I could pick it up.
There was no hesitation that she was going to invite a stranger to her home, no hemming and hawing that it was just a pain-in-the-butt. She genuinely wanted me to have this missing piece and she was old enough to be of a generation that welcomed people - even (gasp) strangers -- into their homes without a can of mace at the ready and poised to scream "stranger danger" at the top of their lungs.
And true to her word, she called me the next day and I arranged to stop by her home on Monday. I found her home easily and was welcomed by three adorable little dogs and this lovely woman in a Christmas sweater holding her door wide open for me, someone she'd met for only a few moments two-days before.
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She handed me the blender and then offered me a seat. We chatted for awhile as I looked around the room, where every square inch had been decorated for Christmas. She even took me to her bathroom where all was Kris Kringly too.
In the twenty-minutes I was in her home, this wonderful lady shared with me pictures of her grandchildren, some of the heartaches she had to endure in her long-life, and expressed interest in my own. An authentic, human connection made between two people who had simply been strangers before a 1950 Nutone Power-Maid blender introduced them.