It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World

I remember the first time I saw it. Our babysitter, Nancy, who was not our regular babysitter, found it on the TV, adjusted the rabbit ears and popped some Jiffy-Pop. It was hilarious. Our regular babysitter was the Dark Shadows type who had a huge crush on Barnabus Collins. She was more into romance than humor. Nancy was the Carol Burnett-Phyllis Diller-LaughIn type. This movie was right in her sweet spot and a real treat for us.

And now, 35 years later, I am living it. All except for the pounds of cash under the Big W. All the mayhem, none of the money.

One Friday, my life now into a groove, I make plans to meet my daughter's Godmother Kate at a local pub so the three of us can have some dinner and girl talk while my son attends an NBA game with my ex and another father and son.

I leave a note for Marnie, who has also gotten into a groove watching the kids. Life is good. I inform her that my son will be going straight to Dad's after school and she'll have only my daughter, and please make sure that her hair doesn't look like a tumbleweed when I swing by and pick her up at 6.

Friday night, seated, our orders placed for Fish and Chips and a crock of French Onion soup already served, we settle in to a nice chat.

"Mom, Mommom was at the house today," my daughter announces as she twirls a long gooey string of cheese around her soup spoon.

I glare at Kate with wide disbelieving eyes. "That's not good." I mouth over my daughter's blonde head full of curls.

Trying not to sound shrill and panicked, I ask, "Really? Did you talk to her?" I desperately did not want it to freak her out to know that I'd not planned it that way, that Endora had taken liberties with her key, had trespassed, had gotten near my children when they were alone.

"Well, duh." Nice. I'd have to skip the reprimand in favor of becoming Sgt. Pepper Anderson.

"What did you say, sweetie?" I was failing abysmally at the illusion of casual conversation.

"Well, I walked in, and when I saw her on the couch I said, 'What are you doing here? I was expecting Marnie."

"And what did Mommom say, pumpkin?" Shrill. Quivering.

"She said, 'Oh, I didn't realize I was fired,' and left.


"Did she say anything else?"

"No, I just said, 'I don't know anything about that,' and then when she didn't say anything back, I didn't know what else to say so I just said, 'I heard Em and Chuck were going on their honeymoon to Disney World. What kind of honeymoon is that?'"

Out of the mouths of babes.

I had to ask. "So was she sort of laughing when she said that...about being fired? Was she smiling?" I hoped.

No, she was gritting her teeth.

Kate mouthed "Call me tomorrow," and we moved onto more pressing discussions about cheerleading and 5th grade boys.

Later that night I related the story to J. He thought maybe there was a misunderstanding. I thought differently.

First, my son usually arrived at 3. My daughter at 4. If Endora was truly there to babysit, where was the oh-my-God-he's-vanished phone call when my son never materialized? She didn't call. She didn't call, because she knew where he was. She knew where he was because she'd read the note...the note that began "Hi, Marnie!!" She'd have to admit to either incompetence or sneakiness. Neither a flattering color on her.

This "mistake" was just an act, and she was not winning an Emmy today. She had been on a missionof her own design: to see what information she could pry out of my children. So transparent. So cowardly. Such an abuse of authority over a child. Three calls to my house phone from Sheila between 3 and 4 dilluted whatever half-baked alibi she'd come up with.

My burning mad world question is, why would a woman of her age resort to such tactics? Seventy years of life experience didn't fill up her toolbox with ways to handle something this simple? If the Angst Fairy kept waking her in the night and she had to know the real story about her early retirement from babysitting, she could have asked me directly. She could have asked J. But she chose door number three, and look what Carol Merrill has for us, Johnny! It's a ticket the bowels of Hell! How dare she corner my child? She's lucky my son was off to his Dad's. He would have gladly given her his unsolicited list of colorful reasons he'd have for firing her.

I was seething. I didn't know what to do exactly, but I knew I could not do nothing. A taste of her own medicine seemed in order. I would appear at her door unannounced and unwelcome and in full on, well-heeled battle dress. I would boldly cross the threshhold and demand my key and then launch into a full gritted-teeth interrogation. Her motives. Her method. Her half-wit accomplice who didn't know enough not to make not one but three phone calls to the scene of the crime. (Barnie Fife was a more competent partner.) And with my uncanny talent for the toe-to-toe confrontation, I would hang her with her own words, which would eventually take on a whimpering quality. I would not relent, even as she called for backup.

Mad, mad, mad, mad world indeed.