A Crime of Comparison

Frustrating Job

My sister and I have been sisters for as long as I can remember. She might be able to remember not being a sister since she was the only one for the first seven years of her life. Once when I was seventeen she called me on a Friday night and left me a voicemail that she needed to ask me something. I called her back and she asked me to baby-sit for her two kids while she and her husband went out. First, I thought I would feed the kids, then let them watch TV, and later on put them to bed. The rest of the night I planned to stay up late and watch TV too, and so I thought this would be an easy way to earn my twenty dollars. It turned out to be anything but easy. Because working as a baby sitter was the most frustrating job I ever had. I discovered this as the evening went on, and everything turned out to be different than I thought it would be.

It was a rainy February evening. I was in the kitchen cooking pizza for dinner. The kids were playing in the living room. Evelina, a seven year old girl, has been watching cartoons on TV; her brother Samuel (Sam), who was four years old, was playing with the dog. Sometimes Sam and the dog would run into the kitchen with his toys trying to involve me in his game. The big, young dog was playing around stopping in the doorway and dreaming of a good dinner. I set the plates and opened the oven door to check the pizza. It was baking and smelling delicious. I switched off the oven giving the pizza time to cool off a little bit. “Are you ready for your pizza?” I asked the kids taking the pan out of the oven. “YEAH!!!” I heard the answer from the living room. I divided the pizza into equal portions and called the kids.

Right before we were about to sit down for our dinner Evelina went into her bedroom and let the parakeet out of its cage. The bird swooped into the room and landed on the sofa. This bird was really intelligent and could repeat almost any phrase. He often liked to repeat “Where is my beef?” or “Petrusha is good.” It sounded funny and that made me laugh.

The dog started chasing the bird around the room, so I decided to catch Petrusha the bird before the dog did. Evelina and Sam volunteered to help me following at my heels and stepping on my feet. The frightened bird flew from one corner to the other as we drew near it. After several unsuccessful attempts to catch the bird, we finally had him cornered by the fireplace. Evelina jumped for it and knocked him over the hamster’s cage. The bird escaped again, the hamster begun to scurrying around their cage like crazy creatures. By this point the dog had disappeared,