Adventures in Overnight Babysitting

My parents have been waiting for me to get out of school. Why? I am the designated overnight babysitter. Not that they don't trust anyone else... it's just that few people are up to the job, or willing to do it for free. So that leaves me. Last week, I was left alone with my 5 siblings while my parents took a week to travel to St. Martin. While they were off jet-setting, we got busy.

Day 1: Ah... the sweet taste of freedom. We did no housework, and watched TV for hours on end. I was voted "Best Babysitter of the Year". Three of my brothers went to the neighbors' house to camp out in the backyard while I had the neighbors' sister over for a sleepover. My friend and I sneaked out late to TP the boys' camper while they were inside the house watching TV. We left them a creepy note for good measure. Job well done. We stayed up until 2 a.m. watching the long version of Pride and Prejudice. It put us to sleep.

Day 2: My friend and I woke up and called the boys. They came over and we played a good game of Ultimate Frisbee in my backyard. We live in a housing subdivision, and our yard is tiny, so it's more like Extreme, or Arena Ultimate Frisbee. My brother almost got his eye knocked out, but we didn't worry too much about it, we figured that's why God gave him two eyes in the first place. He's OK now. I spent the rest of the day hopping from one graduation open house to another with one of my cousins. We decided that if we were really motivated, we could go a whole month without buying food if we spaced out our open house attendance and took home leftovers.

Day 3: Almost fell asleep in church. I was so tired, the rest of the day went by in a blur.

Day 4: Too tired to remember. I basically sleep-walked all day.

Day 5: We decided to throw a party. Isn't this breaking the number one "what not to do while your parents are away" rule? Movies like Yours, Mine, and Ours and The Pacifier show this quite plainly. We had a modest four guests over. It started raining cats and dogs while we were playing Frisbee, so we ran up and down the street playing tag and screaming like tortured banshees. Our neighbors must love us for that.

Day 6: My siblings, with the exception of my darling little sister, accused me of being cranky. They told me I was the worst babysitter ever. I said, "No, I took second. I'm going for FIRST this year!"

Day 7: Nothing big happened. We developed some serious cases of cabin fever. I sent my siblings to a friend's house.

Day 8: We babysat 3 more children under the age of three. I figured I was already babysitting 5 kids, why not 8? Then we cleaned the house. Yeah, that pretty much took all day.

Day 9: My parents got home. I found out that sibling number 5 hadn't brushed his teeth since my parents left. My parents thanked me for babysitting and asked if they could schedule me for next year. I'm still thinking about it.

Homies, Day 6: The Lame Escape

After a night of drunken carousing, we hit the sack and slept in. In fact, we slept past the wakeup alarm. We slept past lunch. Some time that afternoon, we awoke to the sound of a car door slamming outside.

In a flash, we were wide awake, desperately stuffing our belongings into our bags. Our benefactors were home!

"Where'd the potted plant by the door go?" Someone wondered as we tumbled down the stairs and headed for the back door.

We bowled through the screen into the backyard and looked around frantically for an escape. Applejacks looked up playfully, chewing a mouthful of pink roses. The side alley to the front was blocked by the PKB, who was crouched on the gutter, snarling. In that instant, he reminded me of every single villain from Watership Down, not that I have read that book.

There was no time to lose. We dropped our shoulders and charged the wooden fence toward the neighbors. The boards shattered and we stumbled into the next yard impaled by hundreds of splinters. We rose, sputtering, and reached for our bags.

Too late.

"Boys?" Our benefactors were standing in a small semi-circle by the hole in the fence with quizzical expressions. "We're home!" We stood, heads bowed in shame.

Before going further, it's time to reveal an important fact that I probably should have mentioned in the first post in this series: we were housesitting for Mommy G. She had trusted us with our (her) home and we'd blown it. We'd caused all kinds of damage and defiled every corner of the house. We'd even besmirched her computer by making FCN posts from it before it was sold for two hammers and a toilet seat.

"What are you two up to?"

My homie gestured lamely at the house. "See for yourself."

Mommy G turned and walked slowly through the former screen door into the kitchen area, the patrolled the house, eyes wide, occasionally making high-pitched sqeaking noises. "Oh! ... oh! ... oh! ..." When the entire thing had been reviewed, she turned to face us.

"It's still standing," She said. "I'm so proud of you two."

This was not exactly what we had been expecting. "Sure," I said. "But ... aren't you upset about ..."

"How can I be upset? You've already given me so much more than I expected."

"But we sold everything for four hundred and fifty bucks."

"A shrewd business move."

"We ate the bunny and wumped the dog. Now you've got a Shetland that eats flowers."

"Snickers was getting fat and Coco sometimes chased his tail. Good riddance. Besides, Applejacks is adorable."

"There front door is surrounded by holes!"

"It'll improve ventilation on hot summer days."

We entered Mommy and Mr. G's bedroom and inhaled sharply. The mess in front of us stretched the imagination of even the most experienced college student. My homie continued pointing out problems, saying "Your bed has been replaced by a wicker couch!"

"I was getting tired of that mattress anyway. Well, hello, Jake!" Mommy G knelt and extended a hand at Osiris, who had been drawing attack plans on the wall when we entered the room. Osiris hissed and chomped down hard on Mommy G's hand, then jumped out the second-story window, fur flying, shouting: "Viva la revolution!"

"Haha! Good old Jake." She turned to face us again. "You two went above and beyond the call. Good work."

On the drive home, we decided that Mommy G had been bitten by some sort of rare and venomous insect during her time in Zimbabwe. A few hours after arriving home, we recieved a batch of freshly-baked cookies that Mommy G had FedExed over. They were as good or better than the ones she made back when her kitchen worked.

Well, no matter what she tells us, we still feel bad for trashing her house. Oh well. Thanks for the vacation, Mommy G.

Homies, Day 5: Cleanup.

For the last full day of our housesitting, we decided to do the responsible thing: to cover up as many of our errors as possible. This is not as easy as it sounds. The house had been practically emptied of anything sellable and had sustained significant structural damage around the front door (from careless moving of large furniture), the plants we were supposed to water were dead, and all but one of the animals were missing, eaten, or wumped. The house had seen better days. We knew that our friendship with the family was pretty much terminated, but we wanted at least to keep them from hiring a hitman. So we set about patching the place up as best we could off of a very tight budget.

We started with the obvious stuff. First came a thorough mopping of the floors and walls. Then we bought three full sets of wicker furniture and spread them around the house, then blew fifty bucks at a garage sale for broken kitchen appliances and plugged them into various outlets. We pasted duct tape over the cracks in the bathroom mirror and put used gum over the holes in the pipes. We glued cardboard across the holes in the front wall, dug up the neighbor's lawn and spread it in ours (by which I mean Theirs), and "borrowed" produce from a road-side stand to stuff the "fridge." Then came the really tricky business: replacing the animals.

I had spoken via phone with one of the members of the household. She had told me what made Jake (the cat) distinctive and irreplaceable:

- 15 pounds
- Parentheses markings on side
- Responds to "Jake"
- Bites people on ankle when they don't feed him

This seemed doable. Off we went to the animal shelter to find Jake's body double. After several hours of shopping, we found the dream cat. He was eighteen pounds - a little on the heavy side - but he had those distinctive parentheses markings and bit people on the ankle all the time, including when they didn't feed him. He also bit them other places. And he scratched. And he hissed. And he hated people. And he drew plans for his doomsday machine when he thought no one was looking. His name was Osiris. We told him to answer to Jake or we'd take away his paper and crayons. He said he'd behave, then issued an evil buahahahahaha and bit my homie on the ankle.

Next came replacing Coco (the mangy mutt). We shopped for a long time, but couldn't find a dog that would really suit our needs. We decided to revisit that problem and moved on to find Snickers II. Once again, we had no luck.

In anticipation of the day's dinner, we bought a black guinea pig named Mortimer who's fur seemed a bit like Charlie's. If our benefactors didn't get within forty feet or so, they wouldn't be able to tell the difference.

We eventually gave up on replacing Coco and Snickers. Instead, we took a mottled brown-and-white Shetland pony named Applejacks. He looked a little scrunched when we hobbled him in the suburban backyard, but we were sure our benefactors would appreciate the gesture, so we rolled with it.

After a long day's work, we were ready for something tasty. Charlie Pot Pie seemed like just the thing. Lacking pots, utensils, and a working stovee, my homie got a fire started on the kitchen counter. I went over to Charlie's cage, opened it, and reached in to wring his neck. Something black and sharp attached itself to my beautiful face and started biting and scratching. My homie came by with a hatchet and "helped out." I have an appointment with the plastic surgeon next Wednesday.

Anyway, we gave up on the pot pie and settled for sitting on the wicket couch sucking our thumbs. We don't call him Charlie anymore. Now, we call him PKB - the Purple Killer Bunny.

Homies, Day 4: "You can crash at their place."

Sometimes it's the little things about house sitting that get you. Eating the refrigerator empty. Breaking the foosball table. Clogging the shower. Running out of bunny food because you were fattening them up. Bursting the bean bag. Trying to get the smell of marinated bunny out of the kitchen.

Then, sometimes it's the big things.

I had just sat down in my first class of the day when one of my fellow classmates leaned over and started telling me all his problems. He said his wife had left him, he'd been evicted, and he was penniless and would probably freeze to death that evening.

"You think that's bad?" I asked. "We broke the foosball table earlier today."

Well, what could I do? We had been given specific instructions not to let anyone into the house besides immediate family members. I had only one option. I reinterpreted this rule in the broadest and most metaphorical of senses, and then rejected it because it was too nebulous. Then I inviting the homeless guy to crash at our place. Note that when I say our place, I mean their place.

I gave him the key and the address and said I'd be back later that afternoon. When my homie and I showed up, we found not only the homeless guy, but about a dozen of his buddies. They had pitched camp all over the downstairs and were now pillaging the pantry for vittles.

"Hey guys," I said. "I'm not comfortable with this."

"Coming through," Said a homeless guy, brushing past me with a chandelier under one arm and a glass rooster in the other.

"Hey, where's all this stuff going?"

"Garage sale," Said the homeless guy. I couldn't think of an easy way to get these guys out, so I wandered upstairs and watched a movie. When the credits rolled, I muted the sound and listened to the ruckus downstairs: rushing water, breaking glass, shouts.

Before proceeding, it's important to note that FCN is not against homeless people. We don't think they're any less honest than the rest of us and we generally feel charitable and generous toward those without four walls, a roof and a central heating and air. Anyway if our life trajectories reach their logical conclusion, we'll probably be homeless someday, so we wouldn't dream of knocking bums. It's just that, apparently, we got a bad batch.

The steam bath had gotten out of hand, and the downstairs living room, eating area, and laundry room, and bedroom were flooded. The homeless guys were plopped in front of the downstairs TV watching a pay-per-view. Everything besides the TV and couches that could be moved (and a few things that couldn't) had been hauled forcefully out into the front lawn, and signs had been erected all over the neighborhood advertising a garage sale the next morning.

I rolled my eyes and went back upstairs, where I was confronted with bad news and good news.

Bad: I would be sleeping on the floor because the bed was being peddled away.
Good: The Pooh-bears were also being peddled.

Sleep came slowly thanks to the partying downstairs. This morning at six, I came down and negotiated a 5% commission on the day's sales, because after all, it had been our stuff in an obscure, incoherent metaphysical sense for about four days.

The selling was brisk and lively. Goods flew off the lot: tables, chairs, pillows, china, shampoo, beds, pens, kitchen appliances, mousepads, a litterbox, you name it. An hour later, we were standing in a nearly empty front lawn. There was only one box left. It was full of Pooh-bears. I could have cried.

"So we sold away a five-person family's possessions, minus one entertainment set," I said. "What'd we make?"

The head homeless guy tallied it up. "Looks like almost four hundred and fifty dollars," He said, grinning toothlessly.

"What! Only four fifty for all that?"

There was an awkward silence. Somewhere in the distance, the long-last cat screeched. Then, as one, the homeless guys scattered in all directions, laughing like hyenas.

"Hey!" I shouted. "Come back! I want my twenty-two dollars and fifty cents!"

It was too late. They were gone. I wish I could say I was outraged by the systematic robbery, but I can only say I was mildly embarrassed. After all, it wasn't my stuff.

I went into the backyard, pulled up several handfuls of grass, and stuffed them through the wire into the cage of the last bunny, a slightly-neurotic but very cute black critter named Charlie. "There's no more food in the house," I told him. "I think you know what's coming."

Homies, Day 3: Wump.

There's a dog. He's about waist-high, long haired, super-friendly, and very motivated. When this dog gets going, it takes wild horses to stop him. His name is Coco, but we call him Bulldog behind his back (that's the way he charges).

Coco was getting friskier and friskier every time we moved him, so my homie made a fateful error: he decided to take the dog for a stroll. He strapped on a pair of poorly-fitting white roller blades with pink trim and skated on down the street with Coco several feet ahead, pulling him along. They made excellent progress for several blocks until my homie saw a cute girl by the side of the road.

Using what he believed to be his excellent knot-tying skills, my homie tied Coco's leash to a nearby fire hydrant and advanced to unleash his equally excellent woman-handling skills. "Hey, baby. I seem to have lost my number. Can I have yours?" She told him to get lost. He skated around the block once and came up to her again.

"Well, here I am. What were your other two wishes?"

"Why do you keep talking to me?"

"Because you obviously don't believe in love at first sight." We'll never know if this line was any good, because it was at this moment that my homie realized something profoundly dire: Coco was missing. The dog had somehow slipped the knot and was now charging like a bull in the ring toward an oncoming train a quarter-mile away.

My homie set off in mad pursuit, closing the distance with agonizing slowness. With only a hundred feet before collision, he grabbed the leash and pulled. Coco just hauled them both along without even slowling down. My homie dug his brakes into the ground, hollering for the dog to stop, but it was to no avail. All his efforts did was create two evenly spaced rubber marks on the sidewalk. At the last possible moment, my homie flung himself out of the way and covered his head.

Wump.

Coco was run over by a freight train. For the sake of those who knew him personally, I won't get into all the graphic and disturbing details. Suffice it to say that a trip to the vet wasn't necessary this time. My homie returned home, dejected, and hung up his skates.

"Not good," He told me. "It's day three and we're already lost half the animals."

"More than that, actually," I said mournfully. "You see, I didn't know about Coco, and I was hungry ... so ..."

I motioned toward a simmering pot on the stove. The soft brown face and paws of Snickers, the fattest and most submissive of the two bunnies, peeked over the edge of the pot as if sniffing the air. I took a wooden spatula and pushed him back down into the broth.

A half-hour later, we shared a delicious marinated bunny stew with garlic bread and white wine. It was just the thing to get our minds off our animal troubles.

Homies, Day 2: "I Thought He was with You."

You know it's a bad sign when, by Tuesday, you're wandering around yawning and scratching and bumping into things. We stayed up way too late and woke up much too early, and the time in between can hardly be classified as sleeping. We held a vote and decided to wait until evening to deal with the animals. When we got home about thirteen hours later, we fed the silently beleagured bunnies and the hyper-active dog, then trudged upstairs to absorb another flick.

Halfway through, during a lull in the action, we heard a scratching sound coming from downstairs. Naturally, we finished the movie, and then went downstairs with a significant measure of trepidation to see what was going on.

We stopped short at the door to the laundry room.

"Say, wasn't there something about a cat?" I wondered.

"Sounds familiar."

"He hasn't been fed in ... what ... almost three days?"

"Don't worry. Cats are fairly docile creatures."

My homie had obviously forgotten the one part about cats being the kings of the serengetti. When we opened the door, there was a flash of orange fur and a freakishly expressive: "Reeeeer!"

The cat bounded up onto a couch and out an open window into the street. We watched for a few seconds, dumbfounded.

"Are you sure it's the same cat?" Asked my homie. "He's a lot thinner than I remember."

Then we frantically pulled on our shoes and followed.

We spent the evening and the early morning hours wandering around the neighborhood shouting: "Here kitty! Kitty! Come on out, we want to talk! Look, we're sorry about the litterbox. It won't happen again, we swear! Listen, I know you're angry, but if you just come out and hear us out ..."

The neighbors complained, punctuating their polite suggestions with assorted fruits and vegetables hurled in our general direction.

At sunup, we wandered wearily back home and took care of the bunnies and dog. We're still not sure what we're going to tell the cat's owner, but it'll take some serious creativity to get through this one.

Homies, Day 1: Night of the Living Dead Pooh-Bears

I don't pretend to understand why a household of women* asked two derelict college students to house-sit for them while they were vacationing in Zimbabwe. But I do understand perfectly why the derelict college students agreed in a heartbeat. Big house, minimal schedule, two big TVs, and, perhaps best of all, a pink-walled room loaded for bear (literally) with stuffed animals. We were asked to spend a week looking after various flora and fauna around the house. We agreed.

We arrived around eight yesterday evening and moved in. It took about seven trips from the car to the living room to cart in all our essential junk, but we managed. Then, after a short and very masculine celebration that everyone is glad wasn't filmed, we got down to the serious business: movie watching.

We took a quick break to deal with the animals (two succulent bunnies and an over-friendly dog), then plopped our lazy selves back in front of the ol' tube and soaked up some more cinematic goodness. We could tell this was going to be a good week.

Around two in the morning, we stumbled off to bed. I was lucky enough to sleep in the pink-walled, bear-loaded room. The lights went down and I pulled the blankies up to my chin, fiercely hugging an adorable head-sized panda named Panda.

A half-hour later, I was still wide awake, and sweating like a dog. Actually, that's not a good analogy. Dogs don't sweat. In any case, I was upset. There were about a dozen different pooh-bears scattered around the room, and they were all watching me. It was freaky. I couldn't sleep.

At four in the morning it was beyond freaky. I was standing in the middle of the bed, turning in sudden jumps to make sure one of the other pooh-bears wasn't sneaking up on me, waving poor Panda like a weapon. The pooh-bears all just leered back at me in quiet contempt, waiting for me to drop off to sleep.

That's when I heard it; a quiet thump-thump like something out of Poe's Tell Tale Heart. I could hear the bears' hearts beating!

One of the stuffed creatures had a most hideous eye. It had the eye of a vulture --a pale blue eye, with a film over it and whenever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold.

I couldn't take it any longer. Screaming at the top of my lungs, I flung myself down the hall to my homie and fellow FCN contributor's room. I found him sitting cross-legged in the middle of his bed. There was mosquito netting pulled tightly all around him. The scene was strange enough to make me stop short. When I opened my mouth to ask what was going on, he slowly raised his finger to his lips, eyes still closed.

"Shhhhh ..."

Two minutes later, we both poured, screaming incoherently, into the dinky yellow car we use to get around, and spent the rest of the night reclining in the front seats, eyes wide open. The pooh-bears watched us sorrowfully from the second story windows until we drove away to school. Freaks.

* There's a guy in the household, too.