After I shared my alternative lyrics to the popular Barney 'I Love You' song, I was encouraged - or possibly humored - to write a one-shot just so I could use them somewhere. The characters are Janet's. The mistakes are mine.
"I hate you, you hate me. We're a dysfunctional family. With a great big curse, and a smack from me to you. Admit you'd like to kill me, too," I sort of sang, in the most annoying voice I could manage.
Angie and Mary Alice stopped fighting long enough to each give me a horrified stare.
"What?" I said to my nieces. "If you're going to act like babies, then I'm going to treat you like babies. And Mary Lou told me that "Barney" is very popular with children."
"Those aren't the words to the song, Aunt Steph," Angie pointed out.
"No kidding. The original ones definitely wouldn't fit this family. Especially tonight. What the heck has gotten into you two?"
"She started it," Mary Alice insisted, jerking her thumb towards her sister.
This is bringing back all kinds of childhood memories ... and none of them good.
"You started it," Angie replied.
I blew out a loud, exasperated breath. "Great. Now you're arguing over who started the argument?"
"She did!" They said simultaneously.
"And to think, I was worried about watching Lisa. She turned out to be a piece of cake compared to you guys. Look, your mother and Albert will be home in an hour, so how about you save this crap for them - since they deal with it on a daily basis - and play nice until my butt is out the door again."
They looked at me as if I'd sprouted a second head, and just like I would've done years ago, Mary Alice used Angie's distraction to snatch the tv remote away from her.
"Hey! Give it back!" Angie yelled.
"No."
"Fine ... you want to play hardball," I said to them both, "you asked for it."
I took the remote out of Mary Alice's hand, changed the channel they've been driving me nuts fighting over, and put on a show explaining step-by-agonizingly boring-step how latex paint is made. I followed that up with taking the batteries out of the remote and putting them in the front pocket of my jeans.
"This is a little more interesting than watching actual paint dry, but not by much," I informed them.
And while they sighed dramatically, I made a beeline for my bag and the lifeline tucked securely inside of it.
"Yo," I heard after one ring.
"I need a doctor," I told Ranger.
I could almost hear his spine snap to attention over the line.
"Are you injured? In pain? Feeling sick?"
"No, no, and no."
"Then what do you need with a doctor?"
"I want someone to remove, snip, or tie up, whatever has to be in order to ensure that we never have kids."
"We?"
"Well, you already have Julie, so it's too late for you not to procreate. I guess what I'm really saying is that I want to keep my uterus unoccupied indefinitely."
I could tell he was starting to relax, not sensing an immediate danger.
"Since you're calling me an hour before I'm supposed to pick you up, am I right in assuming you're not having a good time?"
"Not even close. My mother always hoped I'd have to take care of children exactly like me one day, but these aren't even mine."
"Valerie and Kloughn should be home soon."
"Not soon enough. Want to come keep me company? If I annoy the girls enough, they'll go to their rooms, and then we can do a little face sucking until 'the parents' return."
"If I leave in ten minutes, what's the likelihood of your nieces being in separate corners?"
I peeked around the corner towards the living room and smiled. Looks like paint production doesn't make for riveting television. Instead of just changing the channel manually, they'd opted to leave the room entirely.
"I'd say chances are very good," I told him.
"See you in a few."
And he hung up. I wondered briefly if taking the battery out of his phone would cure his instant disconnect issue.
Despite how it may look and sound, I'm not a completely incompetent kid-watcher. I used the time it took for Ranger to arrive to make sure Lisa was still asleep, and also see what the other two had found to keep themselves busy. Electronics are limited in this house, but what is here was being utilized. Mary Alice had chosen to listen to music, while Angie confiscated Valerie's laptop.
Being as unobtrusive as I could, I looked over each girl's shoulder to see what was being looked at or played. I'm not about to risk getting blamed for the house blowing up, or the devil making one of them do something that could involve jail time.
When I saw that it was just the usual kid or school crap, I went back to the kitchen and grabbed a bottle of water out of the fridge for Ranger, while I zeroed in on the soda. I needed every bit of sugar and caffeine I could get right now. If it was possible to liquefy a candy bar and shoot it directly into my bloodstream through an IV, I might've tried it.
The first hour of babysitting was good and also fun. The girls helped me fix some relatively healthy sandwiches for supper, and then we all played a game with Lisa. But once the board game was history - while I was trying to get the youngest of the three settled in for the night - I was convinced my two older nieces somehow got possessed by some kind of karma demon.
I was a horrible kid growing up, and it seemed to me like somebody thought a little payback was required tonight. The only thing that kept me from losing it completely, is the knowledge that I only have to stay for one evening while Valerie and Albert schmoozed - or snowed, depending on how you view Kloughn's lawyer skills - a potential client. Plus, once my aunt duties are wrapped up here, I'm going back to Ranger's apartment. And I know I have a full and exciting night of Ranger-ruination ahead of me.
A stupid smile broke out just from thinking about my man of mystery. I'll have to work on eliminating the recurring dopey grins, I thought to myself, as I heard a car door close nearby.
"Is Mom home?" Angie came out to ask me.
I walked into the living room and looked out the window before answering.
"No. I called in reinforcements, and they just arrived."
Mary Alice stuck her head out of her doorway at the sound of a car. "Who'd you call?"
"Ranger," I told them.
Their faces formed matching 'oh crap' expressions.
"He's really here just to drive me home," I said, "but I'm sure he wouldn't be opposed to reissuing an order I've given while visiting. He enjoys telling people what to do."
"Mom doesn't allow boys over," Angie primly told me.
"Trust me, she'll be okay with this one," I said back, and went to open the door for him.
"I see the house is still standing," he said, before lowering his head to kiss me.
"Ranger and Aunt Steph sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G ..." Mary Alice and Angie sang, as if they'd spent the night rehearsing it.
We broke apart and Ranger lifted an inquiring brow at me.
I shrugged. "They're getting back at me for a song I did earlier." I cut my eyes to Trouble 1 and Trouble 2. "At least my lyrics were entirely different ones. You two just added our names to a song older than Grandma Mazur."
They rolled their eyes, clearly mimicking my own eyeroll, then went back to what they were doing before Ranger showed up.
"See, I bring families together," I said sarcastically, relocking the deadbolts on the door.
Valerie and Albert aren't the type of people to attract psychos, but I know my being in their house upped the whackjob potential substantially.
"You do something to them," Ranger told me.
"Hey, they've been fed, watered, and are all in one piece, so I did everything Valerie asked of me. As long as they stay that way for the next," I lifted Ranger's beefy arm and checked his black and steel Rolex, "forty minutes, I can call this kidsitting mission a success."
"They'll be fine. You really are better with them than you think."
"I try. I'm not Valerie, though."
"No, you are definitely not your sister. I have nothing against her, Babe, but I wouldn't want you to be like her or any other woman."
"Not even if I was planning on being the woman making out with you for the next thirty minutes?"
"We can try her out if you want," he told me.
I admit, we got a little too comfortable after that, and I flashbacked to my teen years when Valerie and Albert came home and caught Ranger and I in a pretty heated lip-lock. In our defense, our wandering hands stayed on top of our clothing instead of sliding underneath them.
"I don't let the girls watch certain stations for a reason, Steph," she told me, frowning slightly at my puffy lips and tangled hair. "And yet you're acting out a scene from one of them on my couch?"
"Sorry. Ranger gets carried away sometimes."
"Babe."
"Yeah, I'm sure it's Ranger who's the bad influence here," she said, not believing me at all.
"I kept your kids from killing each other, and your house is mostly how you left it, so you should be nice to me in case you need an emergency sitter again."
"You'd really come back?" Albert asked, like he was shocked that someone would.
I looked over at Ranger, who wasn't at all embarrassed to have had his tongue in my mouth and both hands clutching my ass when the Kloughns had walked in.
"Yeah," I told Albert. "I've just discovered one hell of a perk when it comes to babysitting."