There are in some places jobs that you cannot avoid, and then there are those that you can. I made the very mistake of accepting this particular job without a thought with just the single phrase Steven Colbert had said, always say yes, been employed is better than never employed, it did not mean say it immediately to something you didn’t have a clue about. I assume that is. 

It was just the other day my old friend decided to offer me an under the table job, I take care of some kids for him, he pays me by babysitting my 13 year old sub daughter, sub meaning she considered me as her father despite odd gender differences and the fact she is not my kid, and getting me whatever books I wanted, knowing fully well I demand rather expensive books. Without a thought I said fuck yeah and it was only for a few weeks what could be so bad?

I never doubted my friend Ted, he was a genius, an aspiring engineer telling me things that half the time I could only nod my head and ask about, hey, it was free information, it would totally help me escape a terrible social disaster with Morgan. So, when he said some I expected 4-5 kids. I did not expect a middle school classroom daycare service, really. 
I did not enjoy middle schoolers, I’ll tell you that, despite cute they are they are the generation of children who go from cute to little corrupt monsters, not that I would ever voice that thought.

Ted would only smile and say, oh it’s only for two hours Ben, two hours, with one of those secret smiles he would in fact close the door quietly.

Now, the night before, I decided to play Minecraft, yes Yume’s boyfriend was a saint, dude, the man was a saint. Well no doubt I played it, and died by skeletons later, those things were frigging scary man, despite in the back of my mind how adorable it looked in that pixelated style. 

During that game, I had an ephiphany, it was probably the most idiotic idea I had and just because it was there does not mean it’s the best idea in the world, bad Ben bad, just because you liked learning new shit does not mean middle schoolers would sit there quietly and listen. However, it must’ve been the mango juice or the fact pops let me play on his compy. Must be. That over optimism was unusual.

Bring books, worst thing to bring Ben, your number one distraction next to drawing, books.

I also decided to bring one of those crappy kiddy paints that claimed to be water color but in actuality was liquid goop, red, blue and colorful lies. 

Just incase I brought my old hard hat used for that performance back in the church talent show, don’t ask me asian churches to me made had odd social events. So I was ready, time to go. Yes being an insomniac for that night spending the whole night playing random games, namely solitare, which explains the bizarre solitaire dreams.

Cheating solitaire dreams. 

Fiddling around with the music box, the somewhat clumsily made thing was starting to look presentable. The melody was still in it’s workings and the small knob, could use a few more modifications.

Slinging my bag with what I felt was unusual grace, I’m pretty sure it was this clumsy juggernaut swing, and straightening my back, I had this fear of a crooked spine ever since the doc said I had one in 4th grade, luckily it has straightened out. Three steps turned to twenty strides and twenty to one hundred skips, I refused to use the nice truck in my driveway, cars after all were known to prematurely grey your hair. What’s more stressful than driving a weapon? Around and the possibility of dying at the same time or jail, not. gonna. happen. Forever to buses and BART amen broski.

I arrived at the cute little smiley face ridden entrance of the middle school, grimacing at how many lies the thing told me. Day one and already I wasn’t enjoying this. 

The early morning daycare however was an excuse from work from facing my asshole superiors and having to have this little single cog machine function of having to sign, sign, reject sign, read, sign, reject. It’s a much more complex process due to the fact that one, the company was telecommunication, although the one I worked with was the understaffed branch, oh god. 

Wished I worked with pops, his branch had one of the best guys…here I was training trainees, god save the queen, why didn’t this thing stay an intern. Internally, I mourned to myself as I strode in and was assaulted by some
snot nosed kid. It was cute for a good full three seconds before he took that snot and ate it and the shock factor finally kicked in.

“Gross.” Still the kid was cute. A pause. I needed to fix that damned habit it would become the end of me.

The first five minutes were uneventful, standing around and eventually settling them to sit down and draw, except for that one kid all groups of children had which was the troublemaker, wait let’s come up with a cute evil villain name, Fluffy, yup perfect. So fluffy decided to dip a girls hair in paint and use his hands to draw something akin to a penis. 

Facepalm.

When I looked around, the joys of childrens pictures looking vaguely like inappropriate body parts and was that shit?

Massaging my temples I groaned.