Roxy Hammond

Sometimes it amazes me that people leave their children home alone with teenagers. Not only do they trust the lives of their precious infants to a person that can’t cook for himself or herself, but they actually pay them.

This amazes me because I have two teenage sisters. I would not trust them with the life of a plant.

You see, every time I go home, I am exposed to them and all their glory. Teenagers are fascinating creatures … and by fascinating I mean really annoying and irrational.

I know, I know, I was once an obnoxious teenager (do NOT get my mother started). But I guess the advantage I had was being at least four years older than my siblings. Thus, I didn’t have anyone to fight with over the remote. I was the oldest, I ruled, end of story.

Unfortunately, this is not the case for my sisters. With a whooping 17 months between them, we’ll just say they can’t seem to get away from one another.

Now, apply that to two bad-tempered girls who think they should always get their way.

There were a couple of days the last time I was home when both my parents worked, leaving the three of us home alone.

You’d think at the ripe age of 14 and 15 I would be able to leave my sisters unattended.

Wrong. So very wrong.

One of those days was especially catty.

I should have known it was going to be a challenge when I was breaking them apart five minutes after I woke up. They were punching and kicking one another because sister 14 had changed the channel when there was a music video on that sister 15 apparently liked. Yes, they became physically violent over a music video.

And people hire these girls to watch their children.

Later, when I was watching a movie at a friend’s house, I got a call on my cell phone from sister 14.

“Hello?”

“Roxy? I think you need to come home right now.”

I think to myself, uh-oh, which cat died?

“Why?”

That’s when sister 14 burst into an angry rant about sister 15 always getting her princess-way. Sister 15 then picked up another phone and they proceeded to curse and yell at each other. On the phone. In the same house.

When I convinced sister 15 to get off the phone, sister 14 informed me that I had better come home or she was going to stab sister 15.

See? Bad tempers.

Just to note though, sister 14 is the type of female that would try to plea “PMS” at a murder trial. And trust me, it would be valid.

I told them Dad would be home in 20 minutes and to absolutely ignore each other until then. Apparently though, “absolutely ignoring each other” meant playing her flute in the middle of the living room to sister 14.

Once again, people hire these girls to baby-sit.

So I spend part of my time at home baby-sitting the baby sitters.

I know they’re just going through a bad phase, and someday they might actually grow up.

But until then, consider the age of your baby sitter and ask yourself, does she try to smash her sister’s face through a glass coffee table? That’s what I thought.

Roxy Hammond is a sophomore journalism major.

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