Surrealism in Baby-sitting

Ever had one of those memories that's so weird that you wonder if you just dreamed it, but was so surreal you conclude it must indeed have actually happened?

Once in High School I got a call late one night from a woman in my stake from the neighboring town, desperately looking for a baby-sitter. It was already past 10 when I pulled up to this large, three-story, expensive looking house, and was let in by Mom, and was introduced to a cacophony of two crying boys, hysterically begging their mother not to go on her date with...

These two biker dudes.

Seriously.

And when I say biker dudes, I don't just mean they owned motorcycles; I mean they had the American-flag doo-rags, handlebar mustaches, leather-jackets, beer-guts, finger-less black gloves, cowboy boots, torn Wrangler jeans, and confederate belt-buckles. It felt like a late-night cartoon. I think at least one of them was sipping on a beer. One of them at one point said to me, "Now, don't let these brats give you any sh--" and I just nodded non-concomitantly, all while wondering what the hell was going on.

This scene lasted about half hour, the mother's time was split between thanking me so much for coming on such short notice, and promising her...dates?...that they were just about to leave, and reassuring her (rightfully, in retrospect) devastated boys that she'd be home later that night. Finally the three of them roared off on their Harleys, one of the boys cried out mournfully from the window, "Mom, I love you, come baaaaaack!" I was then alone with these two little boys wailing in despair, and all I could say was, "So, who wants to watch a movie?"

Other than that the night went by uneventfully; I popped some popcorn and put in Babe while the two boys cried themselves to sleep. She eventually returned, paid me generously, and I sped outta there myself. I was pretty weirded out at the time, but a decade later it retrospectively is such a bizarre memory that I question if it actually happened. Seriously, how many successful LDS single-mothers go on impromptu dates with two chubby biker-dudes? What was she thinking?

But then, maybe that's how we at last can tell the difference between when we're dreaming and when we're awake--if it's surreal enough to feel real, it's a dream; whereas if it's too surreal to be fiction, well, then it really happened, I guess.