Way back when ADD was just that thing you did in Math Class, I was babysitting a seven-year-old we'll call Scotty. Now, Scotty was a sweet kid, but supercharged with the kind of hyperactivity scientists would have been wise to harness for nuclear power.
Give Scotty a couple of Pixie Sticks, and I bet we could have solved the energy crisis.
With that sugary diet, plus not a lot of parental consistency, and nervous energy to spare, Scotty quickly proved to the teenaged Me, I'd probably have to give up some of my more idealistic babysitting goals...
So bonding moments like Storytime, Going to the Park, Helping with Homework, or... oh, five minutes of sitting down... were soon replaced with more realistic expectations.
Like: Just Please Don't Set the House on Fire, Run with Sharp Implements, or Nair the Cat.
I tried to keep it simple.
Well, in addition to sharing the relative atomic composition of Uranium, Scotty was also a big Jets fan. And that meant one of his very favorite activities was pretending to be a football player.
The pretend aspect? I was totally up for.
The fact that Scotty felt he could only be a truly-effective football player while stark naked?
A minor concern.
Then I learned that the entire opposing lineup was traditionally played by the family dog. That's when things got tricky.
Oh, I still remember poor Queenie. She was a long-suffering, nervous creature, part German Shepherd and part garter snake.
Queenie had no real bones. No bones. I swear it. Even the gentlest pat caused Queenie’s spine to go limp, and slither out from under my hand. Now that I look back on it, I believe it was a genetic mutation developed from years of playing Defense.
So one afternoon, I’d already intercepted play a few times-- much to the grateful brown-eyed gaze of Queenie. I'd used episodes of Duck Tales, Double Dare, and the not-so-unreasonable request for pants.
But when the doorbell rang, I’d had to take a small TV Time Out. And little did I know I was about to need interference myself.
The people at the door looked friendly enough. But before I got a word in edgewise, the woman had launched into the kind of monologue even Shakespeare would have called "wordy."
She tucked religious pamphlets into my hand... she laughed congenially... she rattled on like I was an old friend.
I blinked and smiled and tried to think of how to extract myself politely from this unwanted visitor.
I mean, you just didn't leave Scotty to his own devices for more than thirty-seconds. Heck, I did that once and found him all the way outside, crouching in the doghouse, pretending to be Queenie and refusing to come out.
It wasn't pretty.
So when I heard Queenie run by, I knew trouble would follow.
And man, that dog was really truckin', too!-- darting into the living room behind me and then slithering out of view like the wise snake-dog she was.
Yes, intuition said the Jets versus Mutts game had gone well into Overtime. But the woman in the doorway just kept on talking-- telling me about the Watchtower, and trying to get me to donate a quarter for a copy.
Until:
"Tackle!" the boy shouted. And here he came, straight down the hallway-- nothing on but a football helmet and a smile-- in hot pursuit of his four-legged opposition.
The woman stopped in mid-sentence, her mouth hanging open on its hinges. "Honey," she exclaimed, "you need to get some clothes on that baby!”
"Tell me about it," I agreed. Only unfortunately, she did tell me about it-- amazingly, she just picked up the Watchtower conversation with renewed vigor.
Well, that was about all the multi-tasking I could manage that day. I dug a quarter from my pocket, stuffed it into her hand, said I was sorry, and shut the door.
I often wonder what she said when she got back to Kingdom Hall.
Did she tell her brothers and sisters of the congregation that she'd done her best to explain their mission. And that things were going well, only then they came-- boogity-boogity-- a boneless dog and a tiny streaking quarterback.
Jehovah apparently works in mysterious ways.
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