The Unbalanced and Broody Babysitter

For some time now I have been quite broody and it seems babies are more frequently popping out of people I know, which is taking the broodiness to new heights.

In August last year the opportunity arose to look after one such child, the fruit of Victoria Thompson’s boss’s loins.

I was delighted, and a bit shocked, when I heard the news that he was including me in the babysitting duties because although he knows me quite well 'digitally' (his choice of word not mine) he’d only met me twice in real life – once when I brought him an ice-lolly because he was working late at the weekend (good impression) and the other time when I was having a mental breakdown on the grass outside his work (not so good) – but as the date came closer the fear set in…

I have a theory that babies, like cats and dogs, can sense evil. I am not saying that I am evil but just that I might be and don’t know it yet. This particular concern has been highlighted by the film Antichrist (I have a habit of taking films personally). Any logical person would have the same thoughts, no? Just me? Well anyway I was worried about meeting Luca because he had the potential to alert everyone in the vicinity that I am the devil.

When I explained this to Vic on the way there, doing my best to hold back the tears, she told me not to worry. She told me that I’m one of the nicest people she knows and I felt guilty so I told her I’d done some pretty mean things when I was little. (I didn't give her any examples but I'll give you one now... When I was seven I went to an all girls' boarding school and they started to introduce boys. The first one to move into our building came to the room I shared with my best friend to give her The Little Mermaid on video as a gift. I think I was threatened by him making the moves on her so I grabbed it and threw it on the floor exclaiming, "She already has this one!" I still feel bad about this especially as I don't think she did have the film.) Vic looked at me funnily and said that anything under the age of ten doesn’t count and that it was probably not a good idea to tell her boss and his girlfriend of my concerns given this was the first time they’d be leaving their three month old first born.

Despite her reassurance I kept my distance from the wee one until the parents had departed for their date, when I felt it was safer to test the water. Also I get embarrassed chatting to babies or young kids when grown-ups are around because I tend to talk to them like they’re adults, and occasionally in this weird voice that my high school boyfriend used to do when talking to his dog, and sometimes me.



Before they left they informed us that Luca only poos once a week. You can imagine I was quite upset by this - I wish they'd told me to sit down before delivering such bad news. However after his bottle he did do some tremendous farting that led us to believe a poo had been deposited. A special treat given the disappointment on hearing of his infrequent bowel movements. Nappy open, we saw it had been a trick played by a particularly stinky fart. It took about half an hour to work out how to get the sticky bits on the nappy to work and also to get the nappy to sit like he wasn’t a gangster with his crotch by his knees. I say we - most of the nappy work was being done by Vic - I was just hanging over the side of the bed dangling my magical necklace in his face to distract him from the indignity of it all.



Perhaps the chiming necklace I was wearing had distracted Luca from outing me because if he sensed any evil he didn't say anything about it. He did, however, mistake my body for a bed and my finger for a nipple. But as I've been mistaken for a prostitute on more than one occasion I'll take being mistaken for a bed and a nipple as a compliment.



After his nap and some food (milk for Luca, meatballs for us), and once we'd worked out which way round to put him in the pram, we took him for a walk in the park and felt how a proud lesbian couple must feel with Luca chatting away to himself in the way only babies that can't talk do. He soon fell asleep and I envied him. If I had someone to push me around in a pram maybe I'd get some decent sleep.

When the frantic parents returned we left them to do some serious catching up. As we walked to the station I text a guy I been on a few dates with telling him I'd been babysitting and "Please can you lend me some sperm so I can have one?" I am aware this is not the sort of thing you say to a guy if you want him to stick around but wait...

He replied straight back saying, "What you doing tonight?"

I have never know someone so keen to lend their seeds for an artificial insemination extravaganza. Maybe he just thought it was the modern way of asking for sex. If that was the case he didn't get what he wanted and neither did I.

I am still accepting donations so do get in touch.

Man, I Feel Like a Woman

On the afternoon of Saturday 19th September 2009 I decided that I am a real man. If my giant turds, excellent DIY and bill paying skills weren't enough my masculinity was soon confirmed after having my ear chewed clean off by at least four hours worth of mindless babble. I sat there thinking to myself this must be how a man feels when a woman just talks at him about things he knows nothing about (i.e. The Hills) and/or has no interest in (i.e. The Hills)*.

I didn't know it yet but things were going to turn decidedly feminine.

Later that night I was taking a zinc tablet in my bedroom and instead of shaking it out on my hand I instead opted to throw my neck back and chuck it straight in. As my eyes went up to the ceiling I spotted a round, black thing. I wondered what it was, thinking perhaps it was a very large bit of dirt. But then it started moving. At first I thought it was a ladybird but it just seemed too big, especially given how high my ceilings are. And then it appeared to be changing shape - this thing was black and morphing and was definitely no ladybird - and that's when I decided there was undeniably a mutant bug in my room. Suddenly without warning it spread its before hidden wings and took flight landing on the door. It was such an unexpected movement that I squealed and threw my arms up in the air. This would have been much less dramatic had I not been holding a pint mug full of water at the time. I spent the next five or so minutes monitoring its location. Then, shape shifting, it moved to the top of the door and disappeared into the crack between the top and the frame. And then its wings kept appearing - huge and menacing. I was horrified. It was nearly bed time and I couldn't bear to turn off the light with this monster cavorting about the place with potentially enormous teeth and a penchant for human blood. I text Vic asking that if she was awake and not busy could I talk to her because I was having issues. She called straight away concerned that something awful had happened. Not yet Victoria, not yet! I informed her in a screechy, high pitched, decidedly girly manner that there was a peculiar creature in my room. She suggested killing it and although I was tempted I knew I couldn't. I live by the moral code that you shouldn't kill insects (unless they're in pain) even if the one in question is a mini killing machine. I got off the phone and mentally devised a plan of action: I'd wait for it to move away from the door and then run out and get a glass (the mug would not do - keeping an eye on this thing once captured would be vital) to trap it in. I eventually got out of the room and when I returned the unidentified insect was on the picture rail and then I couldn't see it anymore. If there's one thing worse than seeing a UI in your room it's knowing it's there but not being able to see it. I went towards the Sainsbury's bag that was doubling as a bin and noticed the bug was hanging out on it. With the speed of a girl on the verge of heart failure I put the glass over it feeding a Fred Astaire CD inlay underneath to stop any attempts of escape and then I took a closer look. It was only a bloody ladybird wasn't it?! In my defence it was on the yellow side of red and had more spots than is usual. I took it out to the kitchen window and tried to let it out. It wasn't having any of it and decided to stay. At least it was now in the kitchen rather than my bed.

I'm not sure what got into me. Perhaps I was brainwashed by all the Hills chat.

There have been various times when I've been called upon to remove creepy crawlies from the vicinity of real girls. There was the time in halls when I had a frantic call from my friend Nikki to come over to her block to get rid of an insect. I patronisingly rolled my eyes and shook my head feeling a sense of purpose as I wandered over. I saw it and I have to admit I was worried. We had no idea what it was - it looked like something out of Jurassic Park. Although I was pretty scared given its size and dinosaur-esqueness I covered it with Tupperware. Imprisonment, I feel, is as as good as getting something out of a building. At least you know where it is and it can't come crawling back to pounce on you when you least expect it. We went back to look at it a bit later and it had turned into two of the same prehistoric bug!! After that freakish behaviour there was absolutely no way I was going near it. We found out quite some time later that one of the boys had found another one and put it in with the other one. We were sure it was an alien that had multiplied all by itself and was planning to take over the world. We also found out later that it was actually a may bug** and not the end of the world as we knew it.

So that wasn't the best example of my manliness but what about these?...

Once when living in a student house I refused to wash a massive house spider down the plug hole and he lived in our bath for a bit. I named him Archibald and I was quite upset when he left. (I'm under the impression he was actually murdered by one of my housemates.)


When I finished university I did a week's dance course in a London studio and found what I thought was a dung beetle on the toilet floor. I couldn't have found it in a more appropriate place. I wanted to take it to the zoo in case it had escaped but it had been crushed a little bit by the door so I decided to take it with me to nurse it back to health. I did this by sitting it on a bit of cucumber. It didn't work so I laid him to rest in a friend's garden. This same friend stamped on my dreams by informing me it was not a dung beetle but a stag beetle so probably not a zoo fugitive.

I feel I have now restored your faith in my masculinity. If I haven't then I happily challenge you to a duel. Yes I am indeed a medieval man.


* Since I wrote this (N.B. I wrote it a while ago but have only just got round to posting it) I have met two men (straight) who love The Hills. It appears I am more of a man than a man.

**Writing this I learnt that a may bug's official name is a cockchafer. I wonder why this is - a masturbation experiment gone wrong perhaps?