It was supposed to be simple. One night. A babysitter, a margarita, maybe two hours without anyone yelling “MOM” from the toilet. I’d booked the sitter. A friend of a friend’s teenager who had glowing reviews and a fringe that suggested confidence. She arrived ten minutes early with a tote bag and a voice like a meditation podcast. My son instantly asked if she’d braid his hair, which I took as a good sign.
I left the house like it might explode behind me. Which, in retrospect, wasn’t entirely wrong.
The plan was dinner with a friend I hadn’t seen in months. We were going to eat actual food. In chairs. With cutlery. I got ten minutes down the road before I realised I still had slime on my elbow. Pulled over at a gas station to scrub it off with a windshield wipe and pretended I wasn’t already thinking about bed.
Then the call came. Unfamiliar number. I ignored it. Then it came again. I answered.
It was the babysitter. The blender had exploded.
I didn’t even know we owned a blender. Turns out my son thought it would be a good idea to make “banana soup” and she, bless her, had agreed to help. Somewhere between the second banana and what she described as “something sticky in a Ziploc,” the motor burned out, the lid flew off, and the entire kitchen got baptized in fruit.
No one was hurt, unless you count the sitter’s emotional state and the ceiling paint. But the kid was crying because the smoothie “betrayed” him and the sitter was apologising so hard I had to tell her it was fine four times in a row. I cancelled the dinner. Turned around. Drove home feeling exactly like the version of myself I’d tried to escape.
Walked in to find the floor sticky, the cat wearing yogurt, and my son asleep under the table, clutching a spoon like it had answers.
I tipped the sitter more than I could afford. Told her she did great. She left looking pale but intact. I stood in the middle of the kitchen, barefoot in something that smelled like mango, and genuinely considered pouring tequila straight into my mouth.
So no, I didn’t get my night off. But I did learn that my child considers anything mashable a soup, and that my blender is both possessed and now definitely broken. I also learned that next time, I’m ordering takeout, locking the blender away, and giving the sitter a laminated list titled “Do Not Blend.”