from the archives

DEATH DON'T BABYSIT

In the years that I owned the house on the west side I learned very quickly about the high and lows of owning a home. But all in all it was an experience that I’m fortunate to have gone through. Now that the homeowner period is all over and all the various roommates and pets are gone I tend to miss all the noise and confusion. I’d been in the house only a few months when these married friends of mine hit me up for a favor. They had the cutest little girl named Shannon who I’d guess to be eight years old. Feisty little crumb snatcher she was, looked like Shirley Temple with a Mohawk. Well, what they wanted was for me to baby-sit for a day. I’m always amazed the shit folks will trust me with, but I never thought baby-sitting was one of em. Next thing I know I’m staring down at little Miss. Blond Ambition and all her shit. I decided I’d better assert myself, so I put on my game face and told her to follow me. It was Saturday morning and I had laundry to do, so I grabbed my clothes and off to the washhouse we went. I tell ya, when I walked into the washhouse with this little girl in tow every old woman in there gave me that look. You know what I’m talking about. That old lady look that say’s; “you fuck up and make that little girl cry and we’re gonna get righteous on your ass, cause we know that baby don’t belong to you”. Talk about intimidating. I got my laundry done and we headed back to the house. I clicked on the TV and told her it was time to watch wrestling. Hell, I thought everything was going fine, I’m watching TV and she had all her toys and play clothes out and was pretending up a storm. What she did next shut me down. She put all her toys back in the box and turned to me and said; “you need to get off your big ass and entertain me, I just a kid and I’m bored”. What! I’ll entertain my foot off in your ……… Whoa, I made myself shut up. She’s right; maybe I should be entertaining her. I’m too new at this baby-sitting gig; I don’t know what to do. “I’ll tell you what. Why don’t you keep on playing while I take a shower and when I’m done we’ll go to the park” Cool, a plan of action at last. I leave her to her devices and I hit the bathroom. I’m in the shower and the doorbell starts ringing off the wall. “Shannon, can you get that please”. As I’m turning off the shower I her clopping down the stairs to answer the door. It turned out to be a mutual friend of mine wanting to barrow some tools.
Shit just then got all kinds of fucked up. Let me see if I can paint this picture for you. The cat at the door is one of the straightest guys I’ve ever met. I’ve never heard him cuss and I know for a fact that he sings in his choir at church. In the back of his head he’s always had this idea that I was some big meanie or some such shit like that. Yeah, go figure. So when Shannon opens the front door all dressed up in her play clothes, looking like a trailer park Madonna and there I am at the top of the stairs all wet from the shower wearing nothing but a robe, the boy just freaked. He started screaming; “I knew it! I knew it! I’m gonna call the cops and get your perverted ass thrown in jail”. He grabbed for Shannon and all that got em was a kick in the junk. She ended up by my side and we both just watched him come undone. I tried to tell him what was what, but he had already called 911. What a fucking mess. Her mother and father had to both leave work so that they could explain to the cops what the deal was. After everything had calmed down he realized he fucked up and all that. Everything turned out all right but I’ll never baby sit again. The whole deal made me realize how quickly shit can go south and how I should run from certain offers.

gbeck@kc.rr.com says, "and the monkey flipped the switch"