The Mystery of the Babysitting Gig

Like a good babysitter, I showed up on time, put the kids to bed when I was supposed to, and, as a bonus, washed the dishes before the parents got home.

I liked kids. I didn’t yell at them or slap them across the face, like one babysitter had done to me years earlier.

She’d brought cookies, and I told her they were “crummy,” meaning full of crumbs. I thought I was making a clever joke.

She didn’t.

What Did He Ask Me?

I had terrible hay fever. One spring it became so severe that my Eustachian tubes filled with fluid, leaving me temporarily hard of hearing. I wasn’t deaf. I could certainly hear a smoke alarm or a child crying, but conversations could be a muffled blur, especially if someone was across the room.

I was also painfully shy.

One evening, as the parents of the two children I was babysitting were heading out the door, the father stopped and asked me something.

Then he smiled and waited for my answer.

I had no idea what he’d said. Too embarrassed to admit I hadn’t heard him, I simply smiled back and nodded.

His expression changed ever so slightly.

The parents left. I babysat. They came home. The father walked me home.

They never asked me to babysit again.

I’ve wondered about that question for more than fifty years.

Was it:

“You’re not going to eat all the ice cream again, are you?”

“Promise not to let the kids stay up watching Ghost Story of the Snake Woman?”

“Your boyfriend isn’t coming over to smoke weed and make out with you after the kids are asleep, is he?”

I’ll never know.