From the time I graduated the Red Cross Babysitting and CPR certification class, I was running a babysitting empire in my neighborhood.
EMPIRE.
You need Friday and Saturday night? Done. Oh, and you're going to Bunco on Sunday night? Sure. You want me to take your kids to the pool every day this summer AND you don't care how many packs of Sour Patch Kids I charge on your account? I'm your gal.
As someone who didn't get her first kiss until weeks shy of her 16th birthday, you know I had a lot of time on my hands.
If someone wrote me a check for all the money I made babysitting, even without counting for inflation, I could take us all on a really nice vacation. Like Top Level Disney Cruise nice.
*just kidding. I'd rather die than go on a cruise.
I was so good at babysitting and so bad as social living that I babysat WAY past the expiration date. So while this is one of my favorite stories, I have a million good ones and expect this to become a series.
In college, I actually worked for a nanny service. Everyone did. It was easy, tax free money. But, I seldom knew the people for whom I was sitting and I probably narrowly avoided being human trafficked millions of times. The families paid a small fortune to have access to this service, so most of them were pretty upstanding and well off. Read: some were super quirky. I always called ahead to get directions and ask about special restrictions or to see if they had a cat because I emphatically REFUSED to sit for anyone with a cat. You have seven year old triplet boys that have black belts in karate? I'll be there. You have a 2-year old tabby cat? Miss me with all of this. Standard business practice.
I called the family I was going to be sitting for that weekend and ran through my standard screener. They had 3 kids under 12, liked pizza and puzzles, video games were ok since it was the weekend, no cat. Bonus was that they lived on this AMAZING street of old houses and I couldn't wait to snoop around to find a secret hiding spot or buried Victorian treasure.
Saturday came and I arrived at this monster house that I just knew was going to be the setting of the movie based on my version of National Treasure: Louisville. Obviously without Nicholas Cage because he is insane. Introductions and pleasantries and pizza cooking directions ensued. Ma'am. Please. I am a professional babysitter. Making pizza is practically my Major.
Emergency phone numbers, the youngest daughter sometimes gets a bloody nose, the middle kid has asthma, in bed by 10PM and the remote is wonky so you have to hit it on the back. Got it. And there they go, out the door.
Oh, wait.
Mom comes back in while Dad is warming up the car and says, "Katie, I forgot to tell you something." This was pretty standard practice; tell me about the wonky remote, forget to tell me the kids are all diabetic. It happened all the time.
"We have a Tibetan Monk living on the 4th floor."
A what the hell?
And she was gone.
Left.
She told me there was a Tibetan Monk living on the 4th floor of their house AFTER the wonky remote? THAT is the information you kind of forgot? A HUMAN BEING IN YOUR HOUSE FROM TIBET?
Also, a 4th floor? How big IS this house?
Ok. This is fine. Everything is fine. It's a Monk.
What is a Monk?
OMG. I know nothing.
Kids know and will tell you everything. But you have to know how to talk to them. Because of my extensive nanny resume, I am basically a professional child communicator. Not with my own child, but like every other child in the world. So, like the professional I am, I start quizzing the kids.
"So... pizza for dinner!!!! I love pizza don't you guys? You know what else I love? Learning new things. Why don't you guys teach me something new... like anything and everything you know about Monks. "
There was no Google on my phone. At that time, I had a red Nokia brick phone that was absolutely no help. No "Alexa, What (who?) are Tibetan Monks?" My Mom. I called my Mom who was living in Wyoming at the time."Hey... can a Monk kill me and a house of children?"
The kids began to tell me that the Monk, or "Bonk" as the youngest one called him had been living with them for about 6-months. He sleeps, he goes to church and he does some chanting. All this from the older kiddo who was clearly the one I needed to pose my questions to. The youngest one said "He doesn't talk." Thanks, junior.
What to do, what to do.
Do I interact with him? Do I offer him pizza? Will he be in competition for me with the TV later?
I decided that it was fine. The kids weren't bothered, I didn't have to sign a form or anything, so I am sure this is all on the up and up. Pizza and puzzles were on the agenda and that was fine.
We got into the night and frankly, I kind of forgot about him. We ate, played and soon, it was time for the kids to get ready for bed. I only had hours left, so I felt like I had wonderfully co-existed with a Tibetan Monk and started to write my Nobel Peace Price acceptance speech in my mind. I was an International treasure.
GOOOOOOONNNNNNNNNNGGGGGGGG
What the what.
The LOUDEST, literal GONG sound was echoing throughout this monster house and it was deafening.
"Kids, do you know what that sound is?" I screamed.
"It's the Monk. He prays and chants now."
Couldn't have listed that on the schedule you wrote on the back of a Kroger receipt, Mom?
9:30 Brush Teeth
9:45 Deafening Monk gong and chants
10:00 Bed
Again, the kids were unphased. I guess you can be calm when you have had 6-months worth of notice compared to my 2-minutes. I got them to bed and crept back downstairs using a staircase that was hidden behind a door in the asthma kid's room. THIS HOUSE.
Should I be praying to? Or chanting? Is it ok that I am cleaning-up pizza while he is doing all that? Would it have been too much to leave a small book like "So, You're Babysitting in a House with a Monk. "
He stopped.
Ok. So now I had experienced it and now I would know how to handle it if it happened again. I could sit down, beat the remote until it worked and get some homework done.
It was eerily quiet for the better part of an hour. No kiddos up, no Monk, even the dog was silent. The quiet and calm was making me a little sleepy, so I went into the kitchen for some caffeine.
From yet ANOTHER secret staircase, came the Monk.
Into the kitchen.
Standing right in front of me.
OMG.
I froze. Seriously froze. Maybe he didn't see me? I didn't know much about Monks, but I am certain they are not a blind people. He saw me and I had to do something. So of course, I went ALL American on him.
Shouting, "HELLO! I AM KATIE. THE BABYSITTER. CAN I HELP YOU WITH ANYTHING? ARE YOU OK? IT IS NICE TO MEET YOU. WELCOME TO OUR COUNTRY AND OUR CITY." I AM A METHODIST AND ALSO PRAY."
Seriously, full red, white and blue.
And then, I remember the youngest kid saying that the "Bonk doesn't talk." And he didn't.
He began to make some kind of meal and I stood there like the complete ass that I am. I tried to help by anticipating what he might need like passing him the salt when he really needed a knife to cut the sandwich he had made. I asked him if he wanted pizza by using my hands to make a triangle and shouting "PIZZA?" And he just shook his head and smiled. I finally won when I handed him a napkin and he shook his head in that "thank you" way that we all understand. And here I was again, International treasure.
He went to leave the kitchen back up the secret stairs and turned, looked at me and bowed. A for real, bend-at-the-waist bow. And I just stood there waving. WAVING. I looked like the Clampetts at the end of an episode of The Beverly Hillbillies. Just waving. I was a "Y'all come back now, ya here" away from a full blown hate crime.
And he was gone.
I didn't see or hear from him again the rest of the night. The Monk-hosting parents came home and I hit them with more questions than a Congressional hearing.
1. How dare you?
They expalained to me that they were so used to him, they almost forgot he was there. Neat for you. He had been displaced when he came to the US from Tibet and he was basically a refugee in Louisville, Kentucky. You know, where there is a huge population of Tibetan Monks. They were playing host family to him and he would be there another 6-months to a year.
Wow. Just wow.
I left the Boudelaire house from Lemony Snickett and as I drove home I thought "No one will ever believe me." I called the nanny agency on Monday and told them about the Monk. They agreed that it was kind of a big deal to let future sitters know. They were worried that maybe I had been too afraid. No. My God. It was a Monk, not a cat.
Even thinking about it now, I am embarrassed at the way I was so ignorant about it all. I would like to think that, should I ever meet another Tibetan Monk in someone's kitchen, I will not offer them pizza using my hands.
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