The Best Babysitter in Town Vol. 2 Ch. 19

Matt offered to help, but I politely turned him down after thanking him again and apologizing on Gordy’s behalf. I felt the need to once again say, “He doesn’t normally drink; I think he just didn’t realize how much he had. He’s a really nice guy.” Matt assured me he understood and told me it was no trouble and all the rest and that he hoped we could get together sometime for a double date. Matt is like that, sort of the boy-next-door type who any dad would be proud to call son-in-law and any employer would be glad to call intern. Whether we call it a date or not, I’d be happy to reintroduce Gordy to him under better (read: sober) circumstances.

And Gordy wasn’t as far gone as he seemed. He wobbled to the car, but the arm I put around his shoulder was more to keep him moving than to hold him up. He was pretty quiet on the drive home and didn’t look at me when I asked him how he was feeling. He was embarrassed and not the kind of embarrassed I find so cute. All I got was a nod when I asked him to tell me if he thought he was going to be sick in my car. When we pulled into the driveway, I asked him, “Can you make it upstairs on your own?” I got another nod.

He headed to his bedroom, and being both the best babysitter in town and Gordy’s concerned friend, I reminded him to hold the railing. I headed to the kitchen to get him a bottle of gatorade to lessen the hangover he was going to have in the morning. When I got upstairs, he was sitting in his desk chair losing a fight with his pants, which were tangled around his right ankle.

“Drink,” I said, handing him the bottle and kneeling down to get his pants off. How he got them so twisted in the first place will have to remain one of those mysteries of inebriation.

“I’m sorry,” he mumbled.

“I know. Let’s get you into a dry diaper. Stand up for me.”

He did and turned to walk to the changing table. I didn’t so much want him trying to maneuver up that step stool. No one I’ve ever babysat has ever needed a trip to the emergency room for any sprains, strains, broken bones, or head injuries, and I want to keep that streak going. I had his wet pants in my hand, had just gotten a good look at how swollen his diaper was, and had a vision of a big wet spot if he laid down on his bed. “Let’s change you on the floor. Take my hand.” I helped him down onto the floor, and he went straight to his back, covering his face with his hands. Poor boy; poor, stupid, drunken boy.

Exactly how do you diaper an incontinent 20-year-old who’s been sucking on a diuretic all evening? Was the two pounds of diaper he was wearing proof that he was empty or merely a precursor to how soggy he’d be when he passed all that alcohol? The latter most likely, given all the gatorade he needed to drink. His well stocked changing table certainly provided me with options. I made my selections and got down on the floor, gesturing for Gordy to spread his legs.

“The room is spinning,” he said.

“I’m not surprised.”

“When will it stop?” Okay, so is it possible for a very drunk 20-year-old’s naïveté about being drunk to be kinda cute?

“Soon, baby. Let’s get you dry.” I opened his diaper and started wiping the peepee off his diaper area. Even while I was doing that, he was dribbling. It certainly is easier to change him on his changing table or at least on his bed. “Can you hold your knees for me?” Getting at his crease, I sent a silent prayer to heaven that the alcohol wouldn’t give him an upset tummy in the morning. I mean, if it did, not a big deal, but I’d just as soon not change a runny big boy diaper (again).

I unfolded one of his overnight diapers and in a maneuver I don’t use all that often, I tipped him back a little and slid the diaper underneath the used one before I took the wet one away. Voila – he could continue to dribble into the momentarily dry new diaper instead of on the floor. I opened the diaper cream and lathered him up like I was greasing an engine, getting especially in all the places even 20-year-old boys get diaper rash. I added two stuffers, and sprinkled powder on those rather than him, not that powder does very much.

“Okay, legs down. Good job holding still … I mean, holding your legs up.” Wow; and I was sober and everything. “You really did a number on your last diaper, so I’m gonna double you up.” I taped up the diaper, and Gordy being an engineering student, he had a protractor on his desk. I reached up for it and used it to poke holes in the diaper near the end of his peepee and behind it, before I remembered I don’t actually know how Gordy sleeps and poked some more by the front. Face down, face up, or on his side, he was all set to piddle a puddle in any direction and still make good use of a second diaper over the first.

Those oversized diapers Gordy’s stepmonster lays across her lap before he goes over her knee for a spanking are great for double diapering. In my (expert babysitter) opinion, that’s they’re only proper use. I think depending on the brand Gordy wears a size small or medium diaper, so the large was perfect for fitting over his already bulgy bottom. “Lift up for me.” Four tapes later, and done. “Take my hand.” He did, and I helped him sit up. He looked more than ready for sleep. “Hop in bed, kiddo.”

I cleaned up from the change and threw his wet pants in the laundry basket while Gordy, direction follower that he is, got in bed still wearing his shirt and socks. “Not quite, sweetie. Sit up; arms up.” So there I was undressing him like I was putting an overly tired toddler to bed, but ya know what, it was fitting. Not that Gordy behaved like a toddler, but that he behaved like a very drunk college boy, and very drunk college boys behave like toddlers.

I had him down to just his diaper, and looking at his slender boy body in the bed, either he looked smaller with the pillow of diapers taped around his middle or the diapers looked bigger or both. “Sit up.” He groaned. “I know; you’ll feel better soon.” I grabbed the bottle of gatorade off the floor and sat down in bed next to him. “Ya gotta finish this before I’ll let you go to sleep.”

“Do I hafta?”

“Yep. You’ll thank me in the morning when your headache isn’t as bad.” He took the bottle and, naturally, spilled a little down his chest. Only a little sorry to say I pictured giving it to him in a baby bottle in his state so he couldn’t make a mess with it.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“It’s just a little spill,” I replied and dabbed at his chest with the shirt he’d been wearing.

“I mean I‘m sorry for ruining your evening and being so awful and embarrassing you,” he managed to get out just ahead of a sob.

Well, crap. “Hey, it’s okay. Don’t get upset. Shhh. C’mere.” I scorched over and patted by chest, and my charge laid his cheek against me and cried. Like, I’ve seen Gordy beat himself up, and I’ve seen Gordy cry. I’ve held him while he cried. But those times he cried, I’d just spanked him for things he didn’t feel especially guilty for, and I’d made it crystal clear I wasn’t upset with him. They were catharsis tears. These were guilt tears. I’ve had a lot of kids I’ve babysat for cry on me for owies, bad dreams, and sometimes guilt, and it tugs at my heart a little like it should for any halfway decent babysitter. But my Gordy feeling so guilty he was crying on my chest? Well, shit. It made me sad.

“My evening wasn’t ruined,” I tried to reassure him.

“You’re just saying that.”

“I mean it. I had a very good time with you. Just except for the last bit, but it’s not a big deal. You’re not my first friend to have too much to drink at a party.” Come to think of it, I think some of my friends might unwittingly take advantage of my natural babysitter instincts when we go out; they know they’ll get taken care of if they have too much. I wonder if they’d be more careful if they knew the night would end with them in diapers.

“People need to learn to drink. It’s a harder lesson for some boys than others.” I had assumed Gordy, being smarter than the average boy and having had a drink or two before, would know better, but I guess everyone needs a remedial lesson sometimes. “You just got drunk; it’s not like you got wasted.”

“You’re not gonna wanna go places with me anymore.”

Which is when I had a flashback to the kiddo who was the easiest kid to ever sit for and who had a huge crush on me and who got in the tiniest bit of trouble and said through great, big ol’ tears, ‘You’re not gonna wanna babysit for me anymore.’ I told Gordy the same thing I told her. “Yes, I will.” If I stopped hanging out with every friend who ever got drunk at a party, I wouldn’t even take myself places. Prime example of Gordy catastrophizing. “This is you and me. We’re still friends.”

“But I embarrassed you in front of your friends.”

“No, you didn’t. Mostly you just embarrassed yourself in front of my friends, but you heard what Matt said. He still wants to get to know you.”

“He was probably just saying that.”

“He was not, you silly boy. And Holly liked you too. I wouldn’t be friends with people who write someone off for having too many one time.” The extent of the sheltering of Gordy’s sheltered life became clearer almost every time we hung out, and that college students get drunk at parties and doing so doesn’t ruin their social reputation was news to him was especially clarifying.

“I lied to you,” he confessed.

“What about, honey?”

“I’ve never had anything to drink before.”

“Ever?”

“Uh-uh.”

“Why didn’t you say so?”

“I didn’t wanna seem like I wasn’t cool.”

“I wouldn’t have thought that. C’mon, try to dry up those tears for me.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You need a new catchphrase,” I joked both to try to cheer him up and because I swear to everything ever I’m so tired of being apologized to. Like, damn. But I did make him chuckle, not exactly with mirth but with something (rue? was is a rueful chuckle?). “But what you really need right now is to finish that bottle and go to sleep.”

He sat up off me, and I got up to grab a couple wipes from his changing table. He finished the bottle in one long pull while I stood next to him. “All done? Look up for me.” He did, and I wiped away the tear streaks from his face. He had puffy, red eyes. “Blow,” I said and handed him the other wipe. Least I didn’t forget he’s not a toddler who can’t blow his own nose, but I guess it’s still a babysitter move to hold your hand out to take a snotty wipe from your evening’s charge to throw it away for them.

“Now,” I said, “lie down and close your eyes. I’ll bring you another bottle when I come check on you in a little bit. We’ll talk more tomorrow, but I want you to know that you and I are fine, okay? We’re just fine.”

I’m not sure if it was a babysitter move, friend move, or proto-girlfriend move for me to sit down on the bed to give him a hug and a kiss on the cheek, or to follow it up by gesturing for him to lay down and tucking the covers under his chin, but I did, so there. I had zero desire to interrogate it. Already way too much veritas in the vino for one night.