Adventures in Babysitting

I am not a people person. This isn't really a shock to anyone that knows me very well, but for people that don't, it's very surprising. Why? I'm too good at pretending that I am a people person. I need to cut that out, for my own good, otherwise people will continually walk all over me as they have in my past (and, presumably, will do in my future). However, today I shocked both my employer and myself by actually standing up for myself and speaking my mind.

And then I quit.

Backing up a bit, it's important to note that I haven't much mentioned working to anyone else because, to me, it wasn't that much like a job. I was receiving ten dollars an hour to aide a neighbor after her eye surgery - getting her meds, bringing her food, tidying up, that whole shtick. The first selling point? Ten bucks an hour for something a helper monkey could do. The second? She can't damn see. Therefore, I could (and did) roll up into her apartment looking a hot mess, and she would have no clue. I had nothing better to do with my time other than write, right? So, why the hell not?

I'll tell you why the hell not. Remember that first sentence up there? That's why not. It started off alright; she didn't ask that much of me, and I didn't have to hang around her place too much. Then, gradually, it turned into 4 hours a day, then six, then seven...until I was spending the majority of my time sitting in her stiflingly hot apartment (Why are old people always so cold? I mean really.) being bored to tears and wanting to just lie down. After about a week, she seemed to just whistle for me (Yes, whistle. An honest-to-God whistle that she blew, often. I now cannot stand whistles.) for no reason other than to just sit with her. But, hey, fine. Ten bucks an hour.

The last few days, however, grew increasingly bizarre. I went over once and she was standing in the shower in the main bathroom. Her bed was pushed to the center of the room. The nightstand was in disarray. Every lamp in the apartment was knocked over. When I attempted to help, I was met with amazing amounts of hostility. I don't appreciate hostility that's unwarranted. After about four days of continually having to put her furniture back where it belongs and rescuing her from the weirdest places to get lost that you can possibly imagine, my patience was basically paper thin.

This morning, maybe there was something in the air. Maybe I'm just cranky from lack of sleep. But I went in, and again, found her in a weird spot, this time, having managed to lock herself in a bedroom. I talked her out of it, which took about half an hour, then tried to guide her back to bed. This whole time, she's complaining and making snide remarks. I quietly accept it and go make the bacon she's commanded that I miraculously find. And as miracles are wont to do, I found bacon and had to defrost it before cooking. Once that was done, I bring her the bacon, and for some reason, she fails to mention she also wants rice and is appalled - APPALLED! - that I would imply that she is to eat bacon on its own. Okay, lady.

I grumble my way back to the kitchen to scour for the boil in a bag rice that she swears is there, and as it's heating, I go back to her room, and she's lost again. In another corner. She then proceeds to take a water bottle and spray it all over the fucking room.

What.

And then I start to yell. I'm not a yeller. I've never been a yeller. I'm more of a stare-blankly-and-try-not-to-cry-er. I don't know what possessed me to yell, but I'm kind of glad that I did. After that, I wandered out to grab the rice, and some butter. When I get back, she's somehow in another corner. I try and tell her she's going the wrong way. This is clearly old lady speak for "Fuck you and the horse you rode in on," because she went cuckoo bananas. After listening to her inform me that I'm jealous that I'm no one's boss, and that I'm stupid for moving her furniture (which, by the way, she moved herself, but no matter), I sat down and asked what she wanted me to do. She started ignoring me.

A 74-year-old woman. Pulling the silent treatment. Unbelievable.

As such, I informed her that it's cool if she didn't want to talk to me, but I wasn't about to hang around to be not talked to. She informed me that I could just give her key back. I informed her that she could give me my damn check. I hung around her apartment asking for said check for about two hours. Then I got too hot and hungry, came home, and called her brother-in-law to inform him. Luckily, he understood and noted that that's how she can be and he didn't much blame me, and that he'll make sure I get my nearly four hundred dollars. Awesome.

Moral of the story? I still don't like old people. Unless they're the kind with candy. Those cuties can stay.