Muffins

I have an Aunt who bakes. She makes buns, whole wheat bread, cinnamon rolls and also stacks of corn tortillas. Her crowning achievement, though, is her muffins. My Aunt's muffins are gorgeous, fluffy, golden things of beauty, stuffed with whatever fruit you like. Try a lemon or raspberry muffin with a streusel topping and then drizzled with a vanilla glaze. No better treats exist anywhere.

She bakes on order and charges a mere pittance for these glorious confections.

The thing about my Aunt is that she is rickety. Nearly every joint in her body is swollen with rheumatoid arthritis. Her knees and ankles are stiff and her hands don't work like they should. Yet despite this, she manages to produce delicious goodies every week.

Once a week a group of men in our community get together for an early morning coffee and fellowship. The men who organize it live in the little village where she lives, not far from my Aunt's house.

This particular week they ordered about 3 dozen muffins from her to take along to their men's coffee.

As these old guys sat at the coffee break they started talking about my Aunt's delicious muffins.

“We should auction them off to you guys” they said. Someone turned to the local auctioneer, yes, truly an auctioneer, and convinced him that he needed to put his talents to work.

The muffins started selling. Fast and furious. What would you would pay for a single muffin?

The next morning my Aunt received a deposit for $400.

“Ok,” My Aunt thought “Mr Keith threw an extra zero on there by mistake.”

She quickly texted him to inform him of his error and he replied, “Can we come over?”

Mr Keith, who has had MS for many years and gets around the little village with the use of an electric scooter, buzzed over to my Aunt’s house with an envelope containing yet another $400.

She told me later, “I was astonished, unworthy, and completely kerflummoxed all day. Nobody had ever done anything like that for me before.”

In case you were still wondering…there are a lot of caring people in this world.