When you were a small child, they bought you clothes. They bought you the shoes that lit up when you ran away from bullies. They took you to Disney Land and the baseball hall of fame. They would quiet your cries with faces, varying in degrees of ugliness and silliness. And then, just when you thought your parents couldn't get any better, they proved you right. They really can't get better. In fact, the first time a parent royally fucks over their kid is when they send them to their first babysitter. After going through a few babysitters, I couldn't help but wonder if my mother purposely sought out horrible people to watch me and my brother, or if it was merely bad judgement. Maybe the woman standing in line behind her at the hardware store carrying an ax, a shovel and duct tape was first on her list of potential babysitters. The woman standing outside of Crossgates mall chain-smoking Newports and asking passerby's if there were bugs crawling on her skin would be second in line to ask. Yes, I am exaggerating, but just barely.
My first babysitter was Ruth. She had as many brain cells as she did teeth; about 4. Lunch was the same everyday. All the kids would be forced to eat her macaroni and cheese with hundreds of cold fatty ham cubes and unthawed peas thrown into the mix. (This may explain why I ask the deli to leave ham off of my italian mix). Ruth's bratty children would ruin all of my coloring book pages by vandalizing them with infantile graffiti and insults written in marker such as, 'stupid poop face.' And at the end of the day, when all of the kids ran to the shed to grab the best bikes, me and my brother would be pushed to the back of the pack and forced to ride the rusty tetanus infested contraptions Ruth referred to as bikes.
I think my mother sensed my suffering and that's when she pulled us out of there. My brother and I were then handed off like a track and field baton. Suddenly, it was goodbye Ruth and hello Linda. What I remember most about Linda's house was the smell. It smelled overwhelmingly of cat food and kitty litter. This would have been a lot less weird if the woman owned cats. Her child was overweight and the rest of the children were forced to follow her dictator-like rule for fear of being sat on. But I don't blame her child for being so fat and horrible. I'd be fat and angry too if my mother was attached to a phone and a cigarette for most of my childhood. Luckily, the reign of Linda ended due to my mothers fear of second hand smoke, although I felt my lungs had been more effected by the cat food fumes.
After this babysitter shenanigans, I made serious plans to flee from my hometown of Rotterdam, "A Nice Place to Live." But just I was about to pack up my Barbie suitcase with some precious belongings, including my "Alf" doll, my mother asked me to try out just one more babysitter. Her name was Joyce.
Joyce was the most amazing babysitter in the world. If you argue me on this, I will win. Every day was something different. Homemade pizza and chicken noodle soup, cheesecake, chicken nuggets, taco night, macaroni and cheese and Kool-aid. I ate so many freeze pops that I started to urinate in rainbow colors, (possibly a medical problem). We made crafts, climbed trees, got chased by dogs and made mud pits. She taught me to swim and to ride a bike. At the end of the day, all of the kids would sit down and watch "Doug", or "Rugrats", or "911" while eating fruit mixed with sugar or cookie dough ice cream. She ended up babysitting over 10 children and she was nice to even the shit heads and smelly ones. Because I am one of the least reliable people on earth, I only see Joyce, her husband Mark and her kids, Emily and Phil a few times a year. However, I love them all the same.
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