Searching In All The Wrong Places

Oscar and I have a busy weekend ahead of us. Not only is it busy, it requires us to find someone to watch Turtle for a great deal of it. It would have been nice if we'd realized that a little bit more in advance than we did, as it only makes it more difficult to secure a babysitter when you are doing so at the last minute. But we clearly missed the boat on that one as our attempts to make sure our parenting responsibilities were covered only began today.

I sent out e-mails to friends and family, while Oscar.... Well, now that I think of it, I'm not sure what Oscar did to work on our babysitting conundrum until the point that I asked him to call his best friend and see if HE was available. (Side note: I had a dream last night that Oscar's best friend was a serial killer, which might have made asking him to babysit a mite troubling. Luckily for me, he was only killing women, not children, so it wasn't that much of an issue.)

As the end of my work day approached, my leads were drying up. So I asked my cube mate (uhhhh....let's call her D)if, since she had watched another coworker's (uhhhh....let's call her F) dogs for the entire Labor Day weekend, she wouldn't mind watching my kid for 24 hours. The excuses started almost immediately.

"Uh....you don't want me to watch him. I'd probably overfeed him like I overfed F's dogs when I watched them."

"I'd be really bad at it...I'd probably just let him play the Wii the whole time." (This one would probably make D Turtle's favorite babysitter, actually.)

"Uh....I'd probably forget he was there and leave him home alone for half the day." (This one would actually make me laugh because I can only imagine the damage Turtle could do, given enough time and enough freedom.)

In the middle of this conversation, F joined in, so I asked her if she would watch Turtle for 24 hours. She was about as enthusiastic as D. Maybe even more so, because she was so excited, she jumped up out of her chair when we were distracted by something else, and skipped back to her desk without answering.

Finally, I was ready to leave for the day and as I was making the rounds to say goodnight, I mentioned to D that I was thinking of asking our boss if he could babysit, as I was starting to get desperate. (I was, of course, kidding.) D seemed to think that would be a great idea and I should walk into his office right away to ask him. Then, almost as an afterthought, she mentioned that if all else failed, I could always post an ad on Craigslist.

I'll give you a minute while that sinks in.

I know. Awesome, right? I love her.

So I continue making the rounds, and stop by the desks of F and M. There, I convey the story of what had just happened at D's desk and, no shit, F looks up at me and says "Young attractive male seeks babysitter for an evening of fun." *Pause* "Uncircumcised."

I have never been more in danger of peeing my pants in my life, save when I was wearing diapers and peeing my pants wasn't as much of a social taboo as it is now. But still.

I did have to correct F's ad, because really, on Craigslist, is anyone going to say "uncircumcised?" I don't think so. I doubt they even know how to spell it. So as far as I was concerned "uncut" was the better way to go, and I wasn't afraid to let her know it.

By this point, I not only had to leave the office because I was running late for picking up Turtle from daycare, I had to leave the office so I could call everyone I know and let them know how hilarious my coworkers are. Of course, no one answered the phone, except Oscar, whose reaction was somewhat subdued by the fact that he was still at work.

But I left Hotass a message on her phone telling her the story, because 1) I knew she'd appreciate it and 2) I knew that reaching her today was going to be difficult with her schedule.

Of course, then I stepped away from my phone, so I missed it when she called back and in her best porn star voice left me the following message:

"Yes, hi, um, I'm calling about the...uh...the ad on Craigslist for...uh... the young, uncut man looking for a caretaker. Um, if you could please call me back, my name is Candi. Thanks."

Too bad she didn't leave a phone number. Turtle might have been interested.