Babysitting, 2006, by Maquel Anding

From MemoryArchive

Who: Maquel Anding
What: Wake Me Up
When: 11 September 2006
Where: Washington, Iowa

It was just like any ordinary Saturday. I was stuck at home, babysitting. My parents and some of there friends were out for the night and I had to watch the boys. They were extremely hyper that night. Running all around the house, leaving toys everywhere and making messes with their food. I was going crazy!

I fed them their dinner, put in a movie for them and told them to get to sleep, but of course they weren’t tired. They wouldn’t even sit down. The three boys just argued and whined until I let them have their way. “You can play for ten more minutes but then you have to go to bed.” I promised them. They all smiled and said “Okay!”

After they started getting tired of running around like crazy kids they decided they wanted to pick out a movie. I put the movie in and turned the lights down. They all fell asleep on the floor while I fell asleep on the couch. It was only about 10:30 when we all fell asleep. At about 11 I woke up because the television was blasting.

I slowly drug my tired body over to the table to turn the volume down on the television. When I reached for the remote I looked over at the boys but all that was there were three empty blankets and three pillows with out any heads resting on them! My eyes grew big and my stomach dropped.

I looked in their rooms, I looked in the basement, I looked everywhere! They weren’t in the house. I started to panic. I picked up the phone; I could barely grip it because I was shaking so badly! I dialed my mom's number, no answer. I dialed my dad's, no answer. Same with the other boys’ parents. I started to cry. I had no idea what to do.

I ran out the front door and raced across my freshly fallen snowed on front yard. My feet were on fire! I had no shoes on and the snow was so cold it felt like I had needles going through my feet. I was running as fast as I possibly could to the boys’ house. It seemed like I was running for hours. When I finally reached their house I could hardly see. Tears were filling my eyes and I was freezing. I knocked on the door, no answer. I didn’t know what to do. My heart was pounding and I was too cold to think. As a last resort I looked into the boy’s window. It was dark and the window was all fogged up. I rubbed the window with my frozen hands and looked inside.

Sure enough, there the boys were. Sound asleep in bed. When I saw them lying there I was so relieved. I started to laugh at myself for being so dumb. There parents must have came and got them and not wanted to wake me up. I guess I never thought about that. Every time I babysit I remember that night, and I always tell the parents “Wake me up when you take the kids.”