Because they wanted To

There is this short story by Mary Gaitskill about a babysitter in Vancouver. She just moved to the city, she doesn't really know anybody there... she is sort of drifting. I read the story a long time ago, so most of the stuff I describe about it will be wrong. She meets a woman who has two kids in a laundromat. The woman asks if would be willing to babysit while her husband and she go to dinner. The babysitter doesn't have very much money left, she can certainly use the opportunity.

The woman has an apartment in a tall building in the city. The place is a little messy, cluttered with toys. They woman and her husband are rushed to get out of the house. She quickly shows the babysitter where the all of the stuff is and lets them know that they'll be back at 9:30.

The children and the babysitter play the for a while. One game they like they like to play is to jump up and down on the bed wildly repeating the following joke: "why did the Chicken cross the Road? Because he wanted to!"

So 9:30 comes and goes and 10:00 and 10:30 and the parents haven't returned. So at 11:00 the babysitter leaves the children alone in the apartment. That's the end of the short story.

I thought about that short story today as I sat in a meeting with our General Manager about one of our accounts (if your reading this its not yours) and the clock slipped past the time I was supposed to leave to meet the babysitter and pick up the kids.

Fortunately I don't live in Canada where babysitters are irresponsible, so the kids were waiting with Liz when I arrived an hour late. Fortunately Lynn doesn't really read this blog. Otherwise I'd be in big trouble.