Disclaimer haiku: Even years from now/ DB will still own JAG and/ I will still be poor.

Notes: I babysit. Toddlers, infants, elementary-age kids... you name it. But! The kids I sit for are lil' angels. :)

I'm a martyr. That's all there is to it.

Take tonight, for instance. Here I am, a perfectly normal, perfectly sane high-school student. I have friends, I have a car, I have homework. So how did I choose to spend my perfectly normal and sane Friday night? Babysitting, that's how.

And before you start rolling your eyes, let me tell you that babysitting is not the cushy gig you might expect. Not even on a good night. And certainly not with the two hellions I watched over tonight. You'd think I would've figured out by now what I'm in for when I agree to take these jobs - tonight was the ninth or tenth Descent Into Hell with these demon-children.

Okay, so Patricia (call her Patty and die) is cute as a button, and her little brother Matthew is even more adorable. That doesn't change the fact that they're a babysitter's worst nightmare. Oh no. For starters, they're both way too smart for their own good. Matthew, who just turned three, has memorized the genera and species names for his entire collection of dinosaurs - and when I say "collection," I mean it; the kid could make 'Jurassic Park 6' with plastic figurines to spare. And Patricia - good Lord, seven-year-olds are not supposed to even know Bernoulli's Law, let alone explain it to their babysitter!

But I'm older and wiser than them, so I can usually outwit them. Usually. Beyond the smarts, though, they've got waaaaaaay too much energy. Within the first fifteen minutes of tonight's torture session, we'd already zoomed through the backyard, the living room, the den and all three bedrooms. There was a brief pause in the kitchen while the kids ate dinner - my stomach was still in the backyard - and then we were off again. I still have no idea what game we were playing, but that brings me to another point: the food. These kids are vacuums with legs, I swear. And it's not like they're eating good food, either.

Well, okay, some of it is good food - healthy food, that is. Tofu, salads, soy milk, vitamin supplements. That sort of thing. But for every container of wheat germ, there's one of Doritos, Oreos, or some other equally unhealthy item. Their fridge looks like it came from Two-Face's lair: leftover fast-food burgers on one side, vegetarian meatloaf on the other. It's the only house I know of where your breakfast choices involve organic bran muffins, Pop-Tarts, plain Shredded Wheat, and Lucky Charms. Even the pizza from tonight's dinner was half-meat/half-veggie, for crying out loud!

Eventually, after I found my stomach in the backyard, I got them coralled in front of the television. Matthew watched my old, old DVD of Disney's 'Dinosaur' movie while Patricia did her homework; for a third-grader, she's got fantastic concentration. Unfortunately, no movie and no homework lasts forever, and that's how I wound up playing another game with them. This one had something to do with an astronaut (Patricia's current life goal) who was also a lawyer stopping terrorists in an embassy with the help of a spy (Matthew's current life goal) who was some kind of super-soldier clone. I was the ambassador and, secretly, the lead terrorist.

Smart kids, but weird. Very weird. Granted, at that age I had an active imagination too, but it makes you wonder what kind of stories their parents are telling them.

By the time we saved the world from what turned out to be a very complex terrorist plot, it was time to get ready for bed. The baths went okay - Patricia is big enough to clean up solo, and Matthew just needs an occasional checking-on, which always embarrasses the heck out of me, but he doesn't appear to notice (he is only three, after all). I got them to brush their teeth, no problemo, but we ran into a brick wall when it was bedtime.

See, Patricia likes to argue. She likes to argue a LOT. Whenever she starts in on me, Matthew stands next to her and nods solemnly, sometimes whispering advice to her. She's a female Perry Mason, Jr., or something. It can get pretty infuriating, and the Neverending Anti-Bedtime Argument was no exception... which was why I was absolutely ecstatic when Mommy and Daddy finally got back from wherever they were. Some NATO thing, I think. The parents are both in the military; I forget what branch and I forget their ranks. Patricia explained it to me, but I was too busy trying to keep Matthew from impaling himself on a Styracosaurus to really listen.

The part where the parents come home is my favorite part of any job, for two simple reasons: Mommy re-takes control of the kids and Daddy takes out his wallet to pay me. But of course, this family had to be different.

Oh, sure, Mommy took the kids off to bed, and Daddy got his wallet, but before he handed over my hard-earned fee, he started giving me this little lecture. It was all about how nice it is to finally find a responsible babysitter, and how much the kids enjoy having me around, yadda yadda yadda. All of which made me feel rather good, because who doesn't like to hear their praises sung? - and it was gratifying to know that the CPR/ first aid certification wasn't a total waste of my time. And then Mommy reappeared and Daddy got to the point.

Pay attention, because here's where the martyr stuff happens.

I'm sitting there, trying to look responsible and cheerful, and thinking that it's a good thing that there's only two of the hellions, because otherwise I wouldn't be able to do anything besides curl into a tiny ball and sob. I assure them that I LOVE babysitting their children, and just like always, I'd be happy to do it again any time they need me... and when will they be needing me again, precisely?

They give each other a look - a Significant Look, which typically means I'm about to get fired, so I cross my fingers and hope this is one family I can quietly remove from my address book. Not that I don't love Patricia and Matthew. I do. They're smart and cute and I feel like their big sister and I honestly enjoy spending time with them. Plus the parents pay well and it's a reasonably steady gig. It's just...

Well, you know.

Anyway, so then Daddy says (and I quote), "Actually, nothing in the next few months -"

And Mommy finishes, "- but how are you with small infants?"

THE END