The Best Babysitter in Town Vol. 2 Ch. 10

Friends in college study together, and Gordy and I study together on campus a couple times a week. In fairness, since we’re not in the same classes, it might be more like studying near each other, but that’s normal too. Doing normal stuff while babysitting Gordy, it turns out, also feels normal. Two friends studying at the kitchen table, so normal I think we both forgot I put him in a cartoon diaper.

Didn’t forget right away, but by the time I was actually focused on my work, I stopped pondering why he even let me, why I even wanted him to wear it, and why he was not nearly as upset about peeing on me as I expected. Maybe I finally got through to him after telling him however many hundred times he doesn’t need to be all cringe and embarrassed around me. Maybe he was getting as good as me at pretending (on the outside anyway) that having a babysitter at twenty is normal.

The thing you hafta understand about Gordy is he’s not a basket case. The boy has way more stress and anxiety than anyone should, and he can get upset easily, but he’s not broken. It’s not like he’s a mopey, bipedal Eeyore.

Remember, this is the same boy who, when a woman rejected him and told all of TikTok that he wears diapers, didn’t have a breakdown. He had an outburst. He called her a cunt; shouted it, actually, in public, across a quad. Yeah, an outburst like that, however much he had a right to it, is the other side of the break-down-in-tears coin; they’re both emotional responses that ideally he would be better at regulating, but he doesn’t just knuckle under and become so sad he’s helpless.

In fact, if you just stop talking about all the crap he has to deal with, he’s pretty normal. He’s good at stuff. If you’re talking about the stuff he’s good at, he gets excited. He’s smart. He’s confident. He engages. I’ve been known to humor the boys and girls I sit for (and their parents) every so often, but I wasn’t humoring Gordy when I asked, “Could you take a look at this?” Sure, it gave him a chance to shine, but I just don’t fucking get fucking calculus.

“What?”

“This advanced math that as a business major I will never need to do again after I finish this course.” He came around the table and sat down at my right side.

“Can I,” he asked and turned my book so he could read it.

I’m a practical person. I’m not saying calculus isn’t important. I’m saying that as someone who intends to go into business for herself one day, I don’t see how finding the area under a curve will be something I ever have to actually do. Why the course was required, I don’t even know, and as a practical matter, should finding the area under the curve ever for some unforeseen reason become necessary as an entrepreneuse, it would be an inefficient use of my value proposition to the company for me to spend my time figuring it out. I’d hire someone to do it, either as an employee or contractor, and it would be a wise business decision that business schools around the country would cite in their management courses. Those same business schools, like the one I was paying many dollars to, however, would aggressively not apply the same standard to students who similarly conclude it’s a waste of their time and a misuse of resources were they to hire someone to do their calculus homework, like, of, say Gordon Rooney. But don’t think I wasn’t tempted to give my him my notebook and pencil along with my book.

What followed instead was an attempt by Gordy to explain what to him was pretty rudimentary. At least that’s what I gather; I know people who can do calculus, but he’s the only person I know who understandscalculus. I think his attempt was successful – he certainly was enthusiastic – but my attempt to follow along with his explanation was not successful even a little. After he went through a whole spiel, I had to swallow my pride and ask him, “Can you show me how to do it in a way I don’t have to, ya know, actually understand what it is I’m doing?”

And yes, he could. I had no clue what the solutions to the equations meant, how they could be applied to real world phenomena, or even what phenomena they could be applied to. But my calculus homework got done. Great use of both my tuition (and hard-earned babysitter money) and my Saturday afternoon, right?

Contrast this with Gordy the engineering major, sitting across the table with a poetry anthology and highlighter, more bored than frustrated. The highlighter wasn’t getting much use. Whatever set of muscles are needed to sigh in annoyance and boredom were getting a helluva workout though.

“Not a poetry person,” I asked.

“Nope.”

“Want help?”

“Nothing to really help on. I’m just supposed to read it. I just don’t …”

“Get it?”

“Care. I like reading. I just don’t get what’s so great about Shakespearean sonnets. Or any sonnet. And I don’t want to sit in the class three hours a week and listen to the same three students talk with the professor about what the poem means. It means whatever the poet meant, and I don’t care.”

“I’ve always wondered about that, if writers actually put in all the themes and meanings people see in their work, or if they’re accidental, or if people see stuff that’s not really there.”

“If this were a story or novel or at least a long poem, there’d be more substance at least. Know how explaining a joke ruins it? Same for fourteen-line poems.”

“You’ve been wanting to say that in class all semester, haven’t you?”

“Yep, and I think I’ve appreciated the shit out of this poem enough to say I did the homework.” And with that he shut the book with a satisfying thud. Gotta love the sound an anthology or textbook makes when you close it like you mean it.

“Is that all your homework for the weekend?” Was that Gordy’s friend asking or his babysitter? That’s at least an example of how the skills of literary analysis translate to the real world, and I guess an answer to my question: if speakers don’t always know the subtext and meaning of what they say, then writers must not either. Not that we spent any time parsing my question, but at least that would’ve been a more useful exercise than, say, finding the area underneath the arched doorway from the kitchen to living room. Not that I’m not enjoying my college years; just doesn’t seem to be the nonstop raucous thrill ride it is for the students who either (A) don’t care if they learn anything, (B) have no idea what they want to do with their degree, and/or (C) don’t live with their crazy stepmom who hires a babysitter for them.

“We should go to a party,” I impulsively said.

“Who do you know who’s having a party?”

“No one, but I know people who are going to a party, and we can go too.”

“You can go, but I’m good staying home.”

“Yeah?”

“I mean,” the poor blushing boy tried to backpedal, “I like parties. I’m in college, right? Love going to parties, cutting loose. Doing … partying. Just not tonight.”

I would’ve said ‘nice try’ but it wasn’t (not even a little), and I’ll save my humoring him for when it’s needed. Too much humoring is called patronizing; thus humoring is a precious resource, especially if you’re babysitting a twenty-year-old. I called him on it instead: “You hate parties, don’t you?”

“Hate is a strong word. More like don’t enjoy.”

“You been to a college party?”

“A couple times our first semester.”

“Then why’d you tell me you like them, silly?” Was that a flirting ‘silly’ or a babysitter-talking-to-her-charge ‘silly’?

“I dunno. In case you wanted to go. I’ll go with you. Or not if you want to go and not take me.”

See? When it’s something Gordy is good at, he’s competent and smooth. When it’s something he’s not good at, he’s awkward and insecure. What exactly did he think he wasn’t good at that had him making word salad – seeming like the typical college boy? Offering, not offering, or offering to not offer to go to a party with a woman? Socializing with new people, or just the prospect thereof?

“We don’t have to go. Neither of us does,” I said. I just brought it up in passing, partly as a not very funny (read: not funny) comment on how much the college experience doesn’t live up to its reputation for people like us.

“You should go if you want. Really.”

“I don’t feel that strongly about it either way, but I wouldn’t leave you alone all night while I went out.”

“It’s okay; I don’t need you to stay. I mean, I won’t tell my stepmom or anything.”

“I’d be a pretty shitty babysitter if I left you here alone and went out, but more to the point, Gordy, I’d be a shitty friend. I said I’d spend the weekend with you, right? Not that raking leaves and doing homework together aren’t fun, but that’s not the kind of friend stuff I meant.”

“I don’t want you to not do anything just because I don’t want to.”

I had the sense I was living in that meme where one person is saying ‘I’ll go anywhere you want. I’ll literally eat anything’ and the other is saying ‘I don’t care where we go. Please pick’ and they’re both crying. I actually didn’t feel a burning need to go to a party. When I do go, I hang out with my friends shouting over the music and people and trying to stay out of the way of the hardcore party people. I’m told party options get better as an upperclassmen, but since I hardly know anyone on campus I didn’t go to high school with – that’s what running a thriving one-person babysitting operation does to your social life – my party connections are, like me, all sophomores, and the ones who know where to find a party prefer the more robust versions.

“Let’s stay in,” I decided, cutting off the cycle before we got any further into it. “Or we can go out just the two of us. Doesn’t have to be a party.”

“Like where?”

“Anywhere. Your parents are paying me a small fortune. Let’s go somewhere nice.”

“Like how nice?” I swear, this boy …

“Nice enough that you have to wear a shirt that buttons.” So there’s a positive. Know how you see a boy and a woman out for the evening, and she’s dressed like she gives a shit and he’s dressed like he’s didn’t notice last time how she was pissed at how he dressed? Gordy, I instantly realized, would wear whatever I told him to. I mean, he let me put the cartoon diaper on him, so …

“What will you wear,” he asked me. “Did you bring anything for a nice place?”

“No, but we stop at my house on the way.”

“Um … Okay.”

Gordy, Gordy, Gordy. He can take the calculus course and I’ll take Interpreting Humans Through Poetry or whatever it is. Either I’d learn things to make understanding Gordy easier or I’d be so far ahead of the professor I’d ace it without even showing up for the exam. Possibilities: (1) Gordy was actually looking forward to going out for the evening but was playing it cool. Definitely not that; didn’t have to be the best babysitter in town to figure that out. I don’t think Gordy has a ‘playing it cool’ mode. (2) Gordy didn’t want to go out. That’s a contender. (3) Gordy wanted to go out but was hesitant because he didn’t have experience going out with women. Strong contender, and I don’t even mean ‘going out’ as in a date; I mean he doesn’t have experience spending time with women his own age, period. (4) Gordy wanted to go out but was hesitant for some whole other reason. Always a possibility, even a probability, with Gordy. And (5), he was ambivalent.

“Gordy,” I said in the sweet version of my tell-your-babysitter-the-truth voice, “do you want to go out or stay in tonight?” Forget that I’m his babysitter. My experience is that having an arsenal of such mannerisms and tones is valuable pretty much with boys of all ages.

“I want to.”

Okay, that was convincing, but there was an unspoken but there. Up to me to ask, “But?”

“But I shouldn’t.”

“Why not? You’re not grounded because of the thing, right?” The note Stepmonster left didn’t say so. The note actually said specifically to take him out. Even if he was grounded, to me that would mean he couldn’t go somewhere alone, not that I couldn’t take him places. Was I missing something?

“No.”

“Then …” I left the question unspoken, and got no response as the word hung in the air. He just blushed and looked at his feet. Getting words out of Gordy when he’s embarrassed or shy or, I think in that instance, feeling like he’s disappointing you is like getting words out of a naughty puppy. You can ask all you want, or you can just go search out whatever it is yourself. But until Gordy starts tearing up pillows when his owner is out of the house, the closest I can come to discovering the problem is asking him more directly than you did the first time. I’d already asked directly, which is Gordy Lesson #2: if you think you were blunt already, do it again but blunter.

But it’s Gordy! It was hard sometimes back then to not feel like I was walking on eggshells around him a lot, but I’d only sat for him twice. I knew Gordy, I was getting to know him better, but I hadn’t figured out all his emotional triggers yet. He’s not the only person I ever sat for who was so different that I needed to learn him so thoroughly, but he was maybe the third. Definitely not more than that. More often, it’s parents who need that kind of handholding.

Anyway, you can’t just be that blunt or you’ll drive him further into his shell, maybe even hurt his feelings. You have to leaven that degree of bluntness by saying it in a lilting tone, add a playful scoff wrapped in a mild laugh, and if you want or need to go all the way, open your eyes a little wider and shake your head just a bit, but no more than twice, and maybe shrug your shoulders, but also just a little. I haven’t until now thought through each step of this process, but those are all the parts of what I call the help-me-understand-cuz-you’re-being-a-you-silly-goose tone. All that to soften the question, “Do you want to go out tonight: yes or no?”

“I do.”

You can throw in an out-loud silly goose for good measure. Most men really (really) don’t like being called a silly goose. Gordy doesn’t care for it, but he doesn’t hate it, at least not enough to get me to stop doing it. Thing is, Gordy can be so sensitive that I really do think it’s helpful to have tricks like that on hand.

“What’s the matter then, you silly goose? Just tell me. It’s okay.”

“I, um … When I’m … In the bathroom, earlier. I haven’t, uh …”

“Your tummy hurts?”

“No. Well, a little, but more that, uh, it hasn’t resolved itself. Me being, uh, backed up. I mean, I feel fine, but if, um, when …”

And then it clicked for me. Got it. Makes sense. On the same page. “O. And if it resolves itself when we’re out, then …”

“Yeah.”

“Well, do you wanna just resolve it right now?”

“Huh?”

“You said if it doesn’t get better on its own in a day, you use an enema?” He didn’t say ‘enema.’ His exact words were more like ‘a, well, you know.’ Gordy, the poor dear, may have trouble using his words sometimes, but we couldn’t both be that oblique and survive the weekend, so yeah, I just went and said the E-word. I didn’t do it to make him blush; I just think he’s cute when he does, which happens to be almost all the time when I’m babysitting him. You’d be forgiven for not knowing that’s not his natural skin tone.

“… Yeah,” was his hesitant, blushing reply.

“Any reason not to just take care of it now? We could go out and not have to worry about it, right?”

“I guess.”

“No pressure.” Hey – bad pun!“But if you’re uncomfortable anyway, right?.”

He thought for a moment. Meanwhile, I was thinking if my end of the conversation counted as the Socratic method to persuading someone to take an enema, so I guess the required freshman philosophy course wasn’t a total waste.

“I guess, yeah. Yeah,” was his response. Not a robust response, but a response. We’ll call that ‘winning enough.’

“Alright, let’s go do it.”

“Wait, what?”

“Let’s just go take care of it.”

“I can do it myself.”

“Your diaper is drenched anyway. Long as you’re on your back for a change, might as well let me do it, right? I promise I’ll go slow and be gentle. Come on.” I put my arm around his shoulder and steered him up the stairs.

I’d given an enema once, when babysitting a constipated infant who happens to be my cousin. It’s not a big deal. I see why it could be from Gordy’s perspective, but I was already so far past any awkwardness about Gordy’s body. Had I not done pretty much everything else there was to do with his diaper area?

“Unless you’re not okay with me doing it. It only takes a second, and I promise I’ll be gentle. Are you okay with me doing it?”

“I … okay?”

“You sure?”

“Guess it’s not a big deal.”

“It’s really not. It’ll only take a second.”

Which was the point. I had a premonition that if I let him do it, it would be an hour-long affair. And we had a closet to clean before we could go out. We were wasting daylight. Probably only take him a week to destroy his closet again, but we were gonna clean the heck outta that closet, just as soon as he used the potty and I got a new diaper on him. I am not only the best babysitter in town. I am by far the most fun.