Babysitters
Scott Mclean
Today’s tale is adventures in babysitting.
Although it should probably be titled adventures of our babysitters.
The first babysitter I remember was my Aunt Wanda who lived next door when I was very young. I love her dearly and she was a great babysitter. I called her honey because that’s what my Uncle Stan called her. I must admit the fact she gave me mayonnaise sandwiches probably contributed to my dislike of mayonnaise. I particularly liked riding in the car with Honey because she drove like she was training for Nascar when she was younger. It was great!
They lived only about 50 yards from our house but soon moved to Selah and I had to train a new Uncle. That was Gale or Gingo as I called him and he probably did the training to my Mom’s dismay.
We had a babysitter or daycare as they now call it in Tieton for awhile. She was kind of cranky, but looking back at some of our exploits she probably had reason.
Occasionally my older sister or one of her friends would watch us. I remember her warning her friend to not turn her back on the little shit.
My folks had a company function to attend and the teenager was told I was to be in bed by 8. I immediately started to regale the babysitter with stories of a peeping Tom seen in the area that folks thought might have violent tendencies. She swallowed it hook, line, and sinker!
When my folks got home a little before 11, I was watching TV and the babysitter had locked herself in a bedroom. For some reason she never babysat me again.
My brother and I started going to one of Mom’s cousins for daycare. I remember her feeding us rice with cinnamon and sugar. She also played religious music and story records a lot. It never quite took!
Steve became enamored of a little girl who was also his 3rd cousin. He was 4 or 5 so it made no difference to him. He started taking her presents. He picked things he liked and presented her with a package of weiners once.
We got to the age that school was our babysitter and I had to watch over little brother after school. I never got paid and I don’t know if there was enough money available to pay for watching the little wild man.
To be fair, I was probably far from innocent! Eventually I had to watch nephews and younger cousins but that’s another story.
My apologies to everyone who had to watch us!
Bye.