Adventures in Babysitting

The World's Greatest Babysitter

If there's one thing that I didn't ever expect to have to do when I married my wife, it was babysitting. She managed not to get pregnant before we met, and I was able to successfully avoid making one of the crazy whores that I dated in college or high school the mother of my spawn.

You can imagine my surprise then, when my wife approached me about watching the five year-old son of her boss, while my wife and her boss attended an important meeting. A little background is in order. I work with kids every day of my life because I work at a children's hospital. So not only do I work with kids but sick kids and often kids who have behavior problems. And this kid was five. No problem, right?

Here are some observations about 5 year-old kids based on my pro bono babysitting experience that will shock you:

• Video games that are rated M for Mature make 5 year-old kids cry... a lot. Halo 2 Deathmatch was a lot of fun until I shot him in the head with a sniper rifle. He didn't enjoy that very much.
• 5 year-olds, despite their expansive vocabulary and apparent mastery of the English language, don't have the slightest clue about what a sorry state the country is in. I explained to this little guy how much college will cost in 13 years when he's ready to go, and guess what he did? If you guessed "started crying", you get three points.
• 5 year-olds are picky eaters. I tried to get him to try 1 jalapeno pepper, and after one bite, he wouldn't even finish the whole thing. What a waste. He just cried.
• After all this, I thought it might be fun to play a game to cheer him up. If you want to kick someone's ass in Trivial Pursuit, recruit a 5 year-old to play against you. This kid thought the battle of Gettysburg took place in 1998.

All in all, I think the whole experience went well. I learned that I need to explore permanent sterilization, and I think he learned that jalapeno peppers don't make your mouth burn forever.