The Hill Man’s Blogspot

Stolen Bouquets

    Babysitters are stupid.  It’s that simple.  One of my old babysitters, Gina, who also helped out at my preschool, used to dunk my head while I took a bath, practically drowning me. This same one also played computer games nonstop while my sister and I beat each other up.  Years after, we had a different babysitter from the neighborhood. She seemed nice, but just to test her, I used to run away and hide in the bushes, or under the deck.  Eventually I would come out so she wouldn’t call my mom freaking out, but then my sister would hide.  It was a fun game for us, but apparently she didn’t like it.It wasn’t long before Mom got us a new babysitter. 

     Her name was Kelsey, and we used to watch MTV with her because she didn’t get that channel at her own house.  She was my mom’s friend’s daughter, and sometimes we used to go to her house and play too.  One day we sat around with nothing to do, and my sister and I decided we wanted to do something nice for my mom. It was a sunny spring day, and the three of us were lounging on the grass. After looking around Kelsey came up with the idea that we could make bouquets for my mom.  The only problem was we had no garden at our house.

     We didn’t let our garden dilemma stand in our way. Instead, the three of us ran through our neighbors’ yards, picking the prettiest flowers off their plants and gathering them into a nice bouquet.  It was like a competition of who could get the best-looking and most colorful bunch.  I went for mostly pinks and reds, with geraniums and snap dragons, maybe a rose here or there.  Taylor picked some of Barbara’s deep purple pansies and bright orange and yellow mums.  Kelsey joined in too, helping my sister and me, as well as picking some for her own mother.  We picked through Barbara’s garden, two houses down, and then Mrs. Gerry’s garden too. Taylor knocked over a pot and splattered a mound of soil all over the cement, but Kelsey helped her stuff it back in. After we had gathered our share of flowers, and left empty spots all over our neighbor’s gardens’, we went back into our own house to find vases and put the flowers in water so they could be ready for mom when she arrived.

    We spent the rest of the afternoon waiting for Mom to get home so we could give her the presents.  Taylor kept running to the door to look out the window while I anxiously sat on the window bench, peering out as every car drove by.  When Mom finally arrived, she was met by an unhappy crowd on the sidewalk in front of our house. Our neighbors had gathered and ambushed her when she got home, a bunch of cranky old cats ready to pounce, complaining about our raids through their gardens and how we destroyed their plants.  By the time Mom walked in the door, she already knew about her surprises and wasn’t even happy when we gave her the beautiful bouquets. The disappointment of her lack of appreciation and excitement was all over mine and Taylor’s face, but Mom didn’t seem to notice. We had spent all day trying to do something nice to her and we were both upset that she seemed more angry about it than pleased.  Luckily, Mom couldn’t get too mad when Kelsey was there, so we just drove her home. On the way back we stopped and picked up two new  plants for each of the neighbors whose gardens we had wrecked, and delivered them to each doorstep when we got home, apologizing for damaging their gardens, although neither my sister nor I was really sorry because truly, it was all our stupid babysitter Kelsey’s idea.

Filed by Mr. Hillman at March 26th, 2008 under I eat paste and other childhood reflections