“Ohhhh!” I moaned, while I lowered my body carefully on my incredibly uncomfortable couch, as if I were a crane putting a roof on a house. I was unable to make it to my slightly more comfortable bed. I’d been meaning to get knew furniture, but the only job I was qualified for, as a high school drop-out, wasn’t paying enough. And babysitting, it definitely did not work out. I knew I really didn’t like children, because they reminded me of little gremlins, so I decided to only watch family. That was a definite mistake and the reason why I was moaning in the first place. I had never worked this hard in all my years of existing. As I lay back on the couch, I thought about my first and last experience as a baby-sitter.

I rang the doorbell, thinking my day would be easy, after all I was baby-sitting my favorite little cousin, even though she was six years old. It would be a simplistic job, and I had my schedule all planed out. At nine o’clock, I would feed Madison breakfast. While Madison was eating, I would let her watch her morning cartoons, the educational ones her mother allowed. This would continue until eleven-thirty. Then I would take her to the park for a little picnic and fun in the sun. I thought I could feed her, let her play to her hearts content, and when we got back home, she would sleep until her parents got home. At the very least, Madison would wake up an hour or so before her parents got home. All I would have to do is give her a snack and let her watch her evening cartoons, the educational ones of course. Little did I know, pieces of my schedule would be floating in the wind, literally.

“Good morning sweet pea,” Aunt Michelle said, as she answered the door.
“Good morning,” I said, as my aunt ushered me into the house.
“She’s sleeping right now,” my aunt whispered to me, “but you can wake her up at nine, if she is not up by then. Also, I plan to be home by five thirty or six at the latest. If I am any later than that, and I will call you.”

So my aunt left, and all was well. It was almost nine, and Madison had not awakened yet. As I lay on the couch, I could hear a faint rustling sound. With no idea what it was, I got up from the couch. As I scanned the room, I realized that my well thought out schedule was missing from the distant end table. Walking towards Madison’s room, the mysterious sound was getting louder, and I started to hear the laughter. It sent chills down my back. It almost sounded like an evil dwarf. When I opened the door, I saw Madison laughing demonically, as she ripped up my schedule and watch it fly from the window.
“What are you doing?” I asked hysterically, not knowing how to improvise on my schedule.
“I am just playing with some paper,” Madison said sweetly, but with a devilish smirk on her face, looking like the anti-Christ. “You are going to have a hellish day, my dear cousin of mine!” Madison said under her breath, while beaming inside.

I forcefully sat Madison on the couch, trying not to seem pissed, and asked her what she wanted for breakfast. “There is cereal, oatmeal, and pancakes. Which do you want?”
“I want you to make me some oatmeal. It’s my favorite breakfast!” she said, sounding as cute as can be but with the same evil smirk. “Can I play with a few toys while I wait on my food like I do at restaurants?”
Knowing nothing about what the other baby-sitters went through, I said, “Of course you can munchkin, but only a few,” then I went off to the kitchen to make breakfast. “Oh my God!” I screeched, when I walked into the living room. Actually, you couldn’t really call it the living room anymore. It was like she pressed a button, and there were toys everywhere; it was really a child’s play land. It looked like a tornado had run through Toys “R” Us. Swimming to the only thing I could see, which was the couch, I made Madison sit down and eat her oatmeal.
Within minutes of getting her food, Madison says, “I’m finished.”
Astonished about how fast she finished, I said, “Wow! Okay, give me your bowl, and you can watch cartoons now.” To tell the truth, Madison watching cartoons was one of the calmest parts of the day.

When twelve o’clock came, I began making the lunch for the picnic in the park, nothing fancy. Then I packed up things that Madison might need or want because I was not going back, and we headed for the car. I strapped her into her car seat, and we were on their way to the park. When we arrived, everything was going great, that was until I bought her an ice cream. Madison went crazy. It was like one lick from the cone, and it sent a sugar shock wave through her body. It hit all the major points to get on my nerves. She was running around like a mad woman. If you are thinking: “they were at a park, and that is what she was supposed to do” then you are wrong. Yes, she should run around the park. No, she should not hide from Chantal, making her think she was abducted or worse.
Oh, but the icing wasn’t on the cake yet. At least not until Madison ran from me and told the police, “That woman chasing me took me from my house.” I mean, it is basically true, but the police sure took it way out into left field. It took everything in me to convince the cops that I was Madison’s older cousin and not a pedophile. The only reason they believed me is because Madison said I was, and Madison said, “She really did take me from my house, ask my mother.”

After that ordeal, I took Madison straight home. It was the greatest part of the day, and quietest, because she slept all the way home. I put Madison in her bed and cleaned up the disaster in the living room that had occurred earlier that day. While I cleaned up, I realized what Madison wanted the oatmeal for. It was stuck to the side of the couch, on the carpet, in the plants, and in the fish tank. I had a time getting things all squared away. I slipped countless times on all the toys that were on the floor. My back would probably ache for weeks if not months.

Thirty-seven long minutes later, my aunt came through the door.
As if it were synchronized, Madison came out of the room and said, “Mommy!” like an angel. “I love when Chantal babysits me. Can she do it all the time?” my aunt looked at Madison with a big smile and said, “Of course baby, whatever you want.”
Madison looked at me and said, with evil pouring out, “I can’t want till the next time. We will have more fun.”
“Yeah right, like this will ever happen again. Devil child.”