Another day, another adventure. This one was an adventure in babysitting. I never knew why they called it babysitting. The British call it child minding, which makes more sense. Anyway, my mother, who normally watches my brother and sister-in-law's children during the day, had to report for grand jury duty. Apparently, that is different from regular jury duty, where you show up and hear a case and render a decision. The grand jurors are called from the same pool, and selected, and then those serving have to meet from time to time and take care of all kinds of matters, one of which is making sure that the local jail is being run humanely, and that people aren't being beaten (openly) or "accidentally" hanging themselves while waiting for trial. And there are all kinds of other things which my mother, who is a quiet person by nature, swore not to talk about.....and she is such a straight arrow that nobody has any idea what the heck she has been hearing about all these many weeks. All she has said to anybody is "I guess I always knew this, so I shouldn't be surprised, but drugs are just everywhere." and, " It seems as if many criminals are guity of mostly being stupid." .....

Anyway, I'm glad that people like my mother are willing to serve on juries and make sure that the jail is all right. For all that my mother is a quiet, circumspect person, she was the one who always told me to "ask why - and if it doesn't sound right to you, don't do it." My mother is like the guy in "Twelve Angry Men" who started all the trouble - if she thought something wasn't right there'd be no swaying her and before long she'd have everybody else convinced of her point of view.

Then my sister-in-law's boss, who, apparently, is the reincarnation of Attila the Hun ( running over everybody elses life, opinions, etc as if mounted on an elephant) insisted that she come into the office today, which left me the closest thing to a responsible adult that could be scrounged up on such short notice.

So I showed up to watch Niece ( age 5) and Nephew ( age 3) with the challenge of getting both children dressed, at least one snack, lunch, limited television, "rest time"and getting Niece onto the school bus in time for afternoon kindergarten. These are really good kids. They aren't any trouble. My brother says that Nephew, who has an excellent and vivid imagination, doesn't pay attention and isn't listening. He has no memory of the fact that he was about 100 times worse as a three year old. Bro was one of those kids who, if you told him not to touch something, would sit there, grinning, with his finger as close to the forbidden object as it could get without ACTUALLY touching it. Niece is a verbal, organized, and sweet natured little girl with the aura of a future CEO about her. "Aunt Tea, I'm learning new words. Every time I learn a new word, I put it up on my wall here. I already have my first one up." she says, pointing to a post it note.

"Oh, what is it?" I ask, squinting. I couldn't get my contacts in this morning, and these glasses are ancient. Uncle? Under?

"Uvula" she says, matter of factly. "You know. It's that thing that hangs in the back of your throat."

"Oh, yes, of course." I say (!?!?) God, do they have A.P. English for kindergarteners?

Anyway, snack was a big success, lunch less so. I managed to get everybody into clothing, shoes, and raincoats with hardly any trouble. As I'm leaving to take Niece to the bus stop with Nephew in tow, I think, "Be sure you don't lock the door. Don't even touch it!" After sucessfully seeing Niece onto the bus (which, incidentally, is driven by such a grumpy old man he scares ME. I think she is one tough kindergartener. He was bellowing at some poor child to sit down before the bus even pulled off so loudly that I could hear him in with the doors shut and the rain comming down.) I got back to the house....and realized the door locks automatically!

So I'm standing on the front porch with Nephew, who is mildly freaked out by all of the earthworms that have come up onto the pavement. He was in between interested in them and grossed out by them, leaning toward the grossed out and ready to go in. I had no keys, no cell phone, and, for a minute, no plan except not to panic so I didn't scare him.

"Aunt Tea has locked us out. Lets go around to the nieghbors and see what we can think of to do." Luckily for me, I saw a parent at the bus stop and was observant enough to remember what house he went into. I rang the bell, introduced myself, explained the problem, and borrowed the phone to call my mother, who, thank God, had been released from the grinding wheels of justice at lunch time and was home. She had a house key which she brought up, so all was well.

But boy did I feel like an idiot. I didn't know that door locked, but you'd think I'd check it. After all, it's not like I've never been to my brother's house before.

Still, all's well that ends well. Both the kids and the grown ups are still speaking to me and everyone was alive at the end of the day, so I guess I did my job!