Not a Responsible Baby-Sitter.....

Something someone said at school today reminded me of this story. Katydid may not remember it, and it's pretty risky for me to remind her. It's not too late for her to kill me.

I was babysitting her son on New Year's Eve. That means he was seven months and two days old, and I was all of sixteen. I considered myself responsible and mature and dependable. Hah!

My friends Jason and.......I think his name was Ron....... came over to Katydid's house to see me, since I couldn't go out and celebrate New Year's with them. Only their car slid off into the ditch at the end of Katydid's looooooooooooooooooooooooong driveway. They tried to get it out of the ditch but they couldn't, and somewhere in the middle of all of this they took off their shoes and walked up the driveway to get me. They had rolled their pants up to their knees, and their legs were COVERED in mud. It was freezing cold outside.

I had to take them somewhere, although it's a little fuzzy as to where I was supposed to take them. Somewhere to get another car, I suppose. I don't think they were drunk; neither of them could drive worth a hoot on a GOOD day.

So I bundle my nephew up in his little snowsuit, put his car seat in the back seat of my car, and haul these two guys somewhere in the middle of the night on New Year's Eve. He looked like a miniature Michelin man in that snowsuit. Bundled up, all strapped in, and the only things he could move were his eyes. He didn't cry or anything. And luckily he couldn't talk yet, or I'm sure he would have asked me, "What the hell are you THINKING, taking me out in the middle of the night?"

I took Jason and maybe-Ron wherever they needed to go and headed back to Katydid's house. I was a mile away when..........she intercepted me at the gas station about a mile from her house. Damn! So close! She had seen my car and, rightfully so, stopped to see what the hell was going on. Personally, I would have killed me. I would have dragged me out of that car and beat me unmercifully. I would have cried and cursed and said in our mother's best voice, "HOW could you be so STEWPID?" (Because our mother can say that word with more venom than any curse word. I think she'd rather us be criminals than "stewpid.")

Katydid, however, was very calm and rational. She simply rolled down her window and said to me, "I'm sure there is a very good explanation for this, and I'll wait until we get to my house to hear it."

Sixteen years old. Driving around in the middle of the night. On New Year's Eve. With a baby. Good Lord.