My day started badly when my little sister was too sick to get out of bed. My mother carted her off to the doctors and they came back with a diagnosis of measles. I'd already had them so it didn't worry me. I sympathized with Marie, made the traditional offer of 'anything I can do to help' and started to head off when she stopped me.
"Yes, there is something you can do," she said, smiling gamely.
"Not a problem," I said, already preparing to run off and bring her back a drink.
"You can babysit the Ferguson's tonight," she said. "They're my best customer and they pay a bomb. I don't want to lose them."
Well, damn. I have a big mouth. I looked at her, ready to retract my offer, but she was so pale and she had a tear in her eye so what could I do?
"Not a problem," I repeated. "I assume the details are in your diary. Don't you worry about a thing."
Marie was a very organised girl. All her babysitting jobs were in her appointments book and she also had a babysitter book, where she listed details of her customers. I looked up the Ferguson's and wanted to retract the offer all over again.
Ferguson - Boy four, girl five. Monsters. Lean on then hard from the moment you walk in the door. Mrs Ferguson - Nosy bitch with a short temper. Mr Ferguson - Non-entity, but he doesn't have wandering hands.
That was my summing up of her notes. Marie's comments were somewhat kinder, reflecting her sweet personality, but I'd learned to interpret what she was really saying. It was going to be a fun night.
My day didn't get any better when I had to break the news to my boyfriend that I'd be breaking our date. We had a big argument over it. We had an even bigger one over the fact that I wouldn't let him visit me at the Ferguson's. Having boyfriends over at a sitter's place was a big no-no.
I knew why he was so mad. He'd had special plans for tonight and, depending on my mood, I might even have gone along with his plans. We'd just about reached that stage in our relationship. After the dual arguments it seemed our relationship had taken a giant step backwards. Really, if a little anticipated fun wasn't going to materialize, suck it up and look to the next time. Don't get all snarky and take it out on me. I didn't give Marie the measles.
I left myself plenty of time to get to the Ferguson's place. What I didn't count on was having a flat tyre. It was easy enough to change the wheel (thank you, daddy) but it did delay me and I arrived a couple of minutes late.
A couple of minutes late, that was all, but Mrs Ferguson acted as though I'd destroyed her whole evening. Even though she'd been notified that Marie had the measles and that I was taking her place she pretended to have forgotten. I know she was told because I was standing next to my mother when she made the call.
Mrs Fergusson gave me the third degree to an extent not allowed to the police force. I was waiting for the bright lights and rubber truncheons before she'd finished. Nosy bitch with a short temper? How about interfering beldam in a permanently bad mood who got her kicks having a go at other people. If I was her genuine babysitter I'd have turned and walked out. Now I knew why Marie said they were paid well. Marie was probably the only person willing to sit for them.
I was introduced to the kids and I didn't need Marie's note to tell me they were going to be trouble. A pair of little horrors, proper descendants of their mother. (This was the moment I decided to enter medical school so I could find a permanent cure for measles and wipe the scourge from the face of the earth.) Fortunately Mrs Ferguson locked them in the playroom until she and her husband left.
He arrived home all ready to go out immediately. I took one look at him and decided that Marie was even younger than I thought. This guy was Adonis. He was superb. A non-entity he was not. As soon as he patted my bottom I knew that the 'no wandering hands' was false, as well. How could Marie possibly be so wrong about a man? Possibly because she was still a juvenile. Boy, did she have some growing up to do.
For all his bottom patting he seemed to be looking down his nose at me. A trifle two-faced in my humble opinion. I was perfectly delighted to see him and his wife walk out the door.
That was the moment that hell on earth began. Those two children were fiends, changelings left by dark elves to devastate a human household. Disobedient and disrespectful, and those were their good points. My opinion of Marie's babysitting skills rocketed. If she could handle these two multiple times she was an angelic babysitter and deserved every cent she earned.
Eventually the two little monsters fell asleep from exhaustion. I was then able to tuck them into bed, praying every second that they wouldn't wake. After that I collapsed on the couch in the front room, turning on the TV and looking for a numbingly boring show to watch. I wasn't up to watching anything even the least bit exciting.
As you can guess my mood was not improved by the children (Note how I politely say children, instead of expressing my true feelings) waking up after an hour's sleep and wanting to play again. It took me another hour to get them both down and asleep again.
When the Ferguson's arrived home I'd had it. I wanted nothing more than to collect my money so I could run screaming out the door, vowing never to return. Mrs Ferguson just breezed straight past me, not even looking at me.
"Jeff," she called as she sailed past. "I'm going straight to bed. Please pay the girl for me."
That was both rude and odd in my books. Rude, in the way she didn't even glance in my direction or say thank you. Odd, in that I was of the understanding that her husband's name was Gordon. That's what Marie's little book said. I'd have to get Marie to fix that.
Jeff turned to me with his wallet in his hand, asking how much. He looked shocked when I told him.
"You've got to be kidding," he said. "That's extortion."
"On the contrary," I replied, "it's the amount agreed to beforehand. I see no need to change the arrangement."
"Where the hell do you get off overcharging like that?" he demanded.
"For a start," I said, pocketing my pay, smiling and feeling happier now that someone else was upset, "I didn't negotiate the rate. That was done by my sister. She's able to charge that rate because no other sitter is willing to come anywhere near those two imps of Satan that you call children. On top of that your wife is a snide bitch who has alienated every sitter who has dared to come here. You, personally, have shown yourself to be an arrogant and supercilious bastard who sexually harasses the sitter. Considering these facts I think you're getting undercharged."
"I am not Jane's husband, I'm her brother-in-law," he snapped. "What the hell do you mean by sexual harassment?"
Brother-in-law - that explains why I couldn't reconcile Marie's description of her husband and what I observed.
"Patting the sitter on the bottom is considered harassment. Maybe you're so used to getting away with it that it hasn't occurred to you that most women probably object to over-familiarisation from a stranger. Most men, too, if you go around patting their bottoms."
"I see. So I'm an arrogant, supercilious, sexual molester, with gay tendencies. Oddly enough I've never seen myself in that light before. I guess it takes a rude, unruly, fractious, brat to tell me these things."
