Day 210
All I can say is … babysitting has come a LONG way since I was a teen.
A LONG WAY.
Of course, it’s been some 40 years since that time – but still.
Tonight I “babysat” which is actually erroneous in wording as the kids I shared time with were far from infants … being 7, 9 and 10.
I was to meet the family at “the club” to enjoy an evening on the beach and then get dinner with the kids while the parents went off on their own. Change of plans due to the weather. We went back to their house where dinner was provided and the kids watched a movie and gave me a tour of the house. We chatted and laughed and it was SO horrendously awful.
Yeah right. They were DELIGHTFUL kids. I enjoyed them immensely, especially the youngest as he was a HOOT! And for this I was paid $60.
I feel like I have committed some act of robbery! Seriously.
When I was a teen I babysat a LOT. Again, erroneous in wording as the family I sat for had no babies – just 3 kids ranging from 5-9 … and they were the sweetest, nicest kids on the planet.
I would sit for HOURS for this family. Wash dishes, clean and organize the pantry, dust, straighten the magazines on the coffee table, get the kids ready for bedtime, play and read umpteen stories, spray “monster spray” and check under beds to make sure no creepsters were lurking, kiss them and their stuffed animals goodnight – and then I’d go watch tv, read and eat whatever snacks they had on hand. Yeah, tough job … and I was happy with the whopping 50 CENTS an hour that I made. The parents would be gone for 5 hours and I would have done all that for a mere $2.50!
This particular family lived in an old house with dark wavy-paned windows. Their house always creeped me out. It had many levels and nooks and crannies and doors and when the kids were asleep and the parents still gone for hours to come … my imagination would take over and get the best of me and there were some nights I just hoped none of the kids woke up and needed anything cuz I was sure some boogeyman was hiding somewhere!
Too many Creature Feature movies for me!
One night the oldest told me he heard something in the basement and WOULD NOT go to sleep until we checked it out. No big deal – right? Except that the basement was a dirt floor cellar with a pull string light bulb in the middle of the room and a stone foundation … and the only way into that said basement was through an old, creaky wooden door through the garage that let absolutely NO light into the space below.
So, there we were … the 4 of us … me with the oldest, the middle child and then the youngest clinging to my backside like the gang from Scooby Doo, shuffling along the dirt floor, me flailing my arms in front of me hoping I would find the pull string and NOT some boogeyman’s face. I was TERRIFIED. And, as you can guess, I found the string, there was nothing in the basement but dirt and blackness and everything was fine. Except that we had to turn off the light and grope our way to the stairs to get out!
Ah, those were the days! Adventures in babysitting … tonight was a piece of cake!