Art Is Fun!

My neighbor Pete and his wife, Martha, used to ask me to come over and watch their daughter, Sally, who was 8. Now, I'm not much of a babysitter, but I found I could surf the Internet as easily at their house as mine. 8 year olds require very little attention. Occasionally I would challenge Sally to some Halo on Pete's 360, but she was woefully inadequate at the game, to the point where it really wasn't fun for anyone.

Pete had been telling me for some time that he wished he and his wife could get a little more time to themselves. I could understand that. Even the best of marriages (which theirs certainly wasn't) can fall to pieces under the constant pressures of work and children. I decided to help my good friends out a little and give them a weekend all to themselves.

To that end, I surreptitiously picked Sally up from her bus stop one Friday afternoon. "Hope you like Corn Pops," I said as she got in the car. "Because that's pretty much all I have at the house."

She didn't seem too delighted with this turn of events, but since when do 8 year old girls know anything? I figured after an hour or two of watching TV, she would sleep for most of the next two days.

When we got back to my house, I picked up the phone to call Pete and let him know the deal. Just as I was dialing the phone, however, I glanced over at Sally and saw her removing some "art" from her backpack. She had cut out pictures from a magazine and pasted them into a collage. Genius! I hung up the phone and went to my magazine rack. "I have a great idea," I said to Sally. "You have glue?"

She nodded.

"Excellent. Let's make a fun letter to your parents!"

I have to admit, the rest of the weekend was somewhat of a blur. At some point I got bored with making the letter and shortened it to save time. I remember dropping the letter into Pete's mailbox. Shortly after, I remember taking a nap, during which I missed approximately 44 calls, according to the display on my phone. Then the FBI showed up on my doorstep. Then the white room. My well-intentioned letter was thrown back in my face. Under the harsh white lights of the interrogation room, it didn't seem as cute as it had hours earlier.




All charges were eventually dropped, but Pete and Martha got divorced later that year. I was never asked to babysit again.