199. Voyeur

My friend had to run to the airport tonight after her child was asleep. She asked me to come babysit her sleeping child. I got here about 10pm and again had put little thought into tonight's blog. At least had the forethought to bring the laptop and the trusty iPhone. First step? I need a photograph. I start taking photographs but it feels so wrong, so creepy. Nikki is a good friend. I am sure she doesn't mind me taking photographs in her house. I not searching through any cabinets, just taking photographs of the way things are displayed and organized in plain sight. But it feels so wrong. Why I am not sure.

When I was a teenager a lady knocked on our front door. I have never met her before. She asked to speak with my mother. After their conversation she asked me to babysit. I didn't want to. I babysat rarely in my youth. My first gig consisted of a 9 month old vomiting all over me and my house for a few hours. When the mother returned she was apologetic and gave me a whole $2 per hour. Of course that didn't include an hourly wage for the cleaning up vomit for the rest of the afternoon. The second babysitting job I was talked into consisted of watching a set of twins girls, daughters of my dad's friends from Mexico. They didn't speak a word of English but they were older, may be 6, so I finally agreed to it. Not 10 minutes after my parents and their parents left for dinner one of them had an accident (no. 2) in her pants. She was embarrassed and tried to clean it up herself rather than ask for help. It was everywhere and of course the smell made all three of us... you guessed it... vomit!

Back to the lady that knocked on my mother's door. She wanted me to babysit her two year old daughter, every Friday night after the kid was asleep. Her husband and her just wanted to get out together. Given my job experience I reluctantly agreed. I went over to her house about 9 pm. It was dark and quiet. She asked me to not watch television because the child was a light sleeper. For several Fridays I sat in the dark afraid to make a noise - I never heard or met the child. To this day I am not sure there really was a child. This went on for a few weeks and I was so creeped out by the nights at her house that I decided to quit. The lady probably thought I was nuts. Not that I am disagreeing with her - she paid me well and I didn't have to do anything for the money. I wish I had thought to bring my camera.