Happy New Year, indeed! People keep saying it’s gotta be better than the last one, but I see no reason to think so. Based on what evidence? Still, I don’t want to bring anyone down, so let’s move on; I’m not a glass half empty/ half full person, I’m a keep-that-sucker-topped-up kinda gal! Not sure if that applies, but I like the imagery.
One last babysitting memory: At fourteen, I sat regularly for a toddler down the street. The parents were nice enough, but quite vulgar and loud. And they were both huge. As in tall and vastly overweight. When I was growing up, very few people were fat, so they were exotic and out-of-place in a neighborhood full of Size Four Moms and Johnny Carson Dads.
There was one incident that caused me to refuse any further employment (despite that they paid twice what everyone else on the street deemed appropriate - $1 an hour. The other parents felt it was boorish – like people out of their depth over-tipping a waiter. They were just jolly and generous, young and learning the ropes, in my teenaged opinion).
But one day, they hired me so they could go to an afternoon barbecue. I got there around 11:30am and was told to expect them back around 5:00pm, in time to feed and bathe the baby and send me on my way.
They rolled in after 2:00am.
I had been there 13 hours. When they finally banged home, I was asleep on the family room sofa, nearly comatose. Completely inebriated, they woke me up, and it took me a good five or so minutes to realize where I was. I’m pretty sure I was babbling. They gave me $25 and I walked home in the early morning darkness. My parents left the side door open, but had gone to bed (thanks for caring, Mom and Dad!).
Fast forward many years: My daughter was asked to babysit for the child of one of her teachers when she was about the same age as me. She, too, had been pressed into service for about the same number of hours. Her compensation? $10.
Going back to my first paragraph: It’s gotta get better, right? QED, is all I can say.