the first

for those of you who know me even remotely well, you know what i do for a living. for those of you who don't, i'm a 'nanny'. my job description should be 'take care of children.' instead, it has grown to encompass the following; dog walker, food cooker, grocery shopper, laundry folder, errand runner, chauffeur, do-er of dishes, schedule maker, the list goes on and on. the ad i answered in the paper two years ago should have gone something like this:

WANTED: someone to do all of the things we don't want to do, oh and by the way, take care of our kids while you're at it.

some people dream of having their own office in the corner of the building, i'd settle for the corner of a cubicle right now. hell, you can put me in the hallway if it means i don't have to hook the damned carseat into my car one more time.
don't get me wrong, there has been a lot of good that has come along with this job. the best perk by far has been the OUTRAGEOUS stories that revolve around this family unit. i seriously could not make this shit up. for instance, there is a grandmother from nyc, lets refer to her as MM, who comes to visit every so often and usually i end up carting her around at least once during her sojourns north. her most favorite thing to do is go to target. i think it makes her feel closer to the common man. i adore target as well, but not when MM is along. the best trip was last fall when she had her all black, all spandex outfit on, with the enormous chanel sunglasses, huge marc jacobs bag AND baby blue crocs. lets not forget about the baby blue pashmina that topped it all off and the perfectly coiffed hair that took half a lifetime to perfect while buckaroo and i sat in the car listening to raffi sing his version of 'yellow submarine.'
once we were in target, the fun really started. we were there to find dumb things like hairspray and toothbrushes but MM just could not make it more than 7 feet without finding something that she deemed "divine." i like target and all. i would even go so far as to say that i somewhere between 'more than like' and 'love' target, kind of like the guy you were 'seeing' in high school. i would not however, call anything i find at target 'divine.' but i digress.
we were just about to pass the underthings section of target when MM spotted bras that just needed to be talked about. she went on to wax poetic about how fabulous this certain bra was and blah blah blah. i remember nothing that she said except for "look, its just like the one i'm wearing right now." she then proceded to LIFT UP HER SHIRT AND SHOW ME HER BRA AND HER 60SOMETHING YEAR OLD BOOBS! what do you do? its like those books from grade school, choose your own adventure or something stupid like that. what choice do you make? do you a) tell crazy to put her shirt back on, that this is new england, not a nudist colony, b) laugh in her face or c) nod and smile and make a mental note to remember this for your memoirs. i just smiled and said "look MM, there are the fake uggs you wanted to look at." her reply, "oh lo darling, you're just too divine."