I remember reading Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day when I was a child. Truth be told I can’t tell you what it was that made him have that day, but Alexander should’ve been with me and my friend last night.
It was just a typical night of babysitting except that it was a little hectic because we had three of our regular little friends and their three cousins. Dealing with five boys ranging from three to ten and a baby girl not yet two sounds hectic, but we’ve been tag- team babysitting for eight years now.
We got there at 7 pm and the uncle was cooking up the ingridiants for tacos, a messy dinner to be sure but we had it under control. We quickly had a plan in our heads and the great thing about working with your best friend is you don’t really need to communicate; you both just fall into a pattern of how to get things done.
After the kids were done eating, the four biggest boys convened in the living room to watch a movie and the little ones bounced around in the playroom. We could hear everyone and started the task of cleaning up. She took to the task of clearing the table and sweeping up the dining room floor while I loaded the dish washer and attacked the remaining dishes (yes there were more than could fit in the washer) by hand in the sink. At 8:15, we got the kids into their pajamas, she took the baby upstairs to get her settle into her crib, and I made popcorn for the boys.
Everything was going smoothly and at nine o’clock we planned on having the boys in bed. There would be a story, maybe two, and by 9:15 we would be free to watch TV and rest after the non-stop but non eventful evening. That was the plan but you know what they say about the best laid plans of Mice and Men…
After giving the boys their popcorn, I went back into the kitchen to rinse the remaining pots and pans that had been soaking. The kitchen smelt like burnt popcorn, though none of the kernels had looked black, so I thought nothing of it. I turned around and there was the little three year old asking me for some “Cherials” (thank God for hungry children) so I grabbed the cheerios from atop the electric stove.
The entire bottom of the box was black. Apparently, in his rush to leave, dear sweet uncle had forgotten to turn the stove top off and had only turned the Nob down to low heat. I immediately ripped open the box to pull out the bag inside and throw the box in the sink water so it wouldn’t ignite.
What I didn’t consider in my haste was that after simmering for over an hour that the bag would’ve melted on the inside. Yup, you guessed it, cheerios all over the floor. Still I didn’t panic. I had found the burning box before a fire; I could handle cleaning a box of cereal off the floor. So I grabbed the baby and a new box of cereal and set him up in the living room. I told the boys I had to clean up the kitchen so try not to walk in there, got the vacuum and starting sucking it up.
When my friend came down she had a look on her face like, “this is bad,” so I explained what happened and said that it was a lot better than having to wait outside with six kids in PJs for the fire truck. Soon the cereal was gone and everyone was in asleep. I was seconds away from watching an HD TV for hours and then my friend said what ended up to be the dreaded words; “Since you’ve got the vacuum out, why not just suck up the popcorn in the living room. It’ll be quicker than doing it by hand.”
I turned off the TV, didn’t want to trip the electric, and plugged in the vacuum. I never considered the dish washer would be on the same circuit or fuse but sure enough half of the house blew out. So I make a call to find out if it’s a fuse or a circuit breaker and the location of whichever it is.
Voicemail.
I begin the search for the electric source, I know what both boxes look like so when I locate it I’ll, maybe be able to fix it. After searching what appeared to be the entire basement and garage three times I found a tiny alcove and squeezed my way through it, feeling like I was travelling to Narnia. There, at the farthest corner of Narnia was the circuit breaker. I flipped every one of the 16 switches, blacking the house out completely, while my friend yelled down the stairs as everything came on one by one except the one that originally went out.
Well what else is a girl to do but call daddy, and so my father came over and explained that this trip was the final straw and the breaker was blown out and needed to be replaced ( I later found out that the vacuuming in the living room with the dishwasher on has blown the electric several times this week.)
My dad said that there was nothing that could be done until morning so my friend and I decided that we wouldn’t ruin a night out and so we sat in the dark with no TV and limited light until 2:30 when the parents came home.