The NEW Babysitters Club!
7.20.07


NEWSFLASH -- The apparent shortage of babysitters has created a severe crisis in restaurants, movie theatres and even bars across the country. Before proceeding, Onyx Cranium’s editor insisted that I admit to being a single woman with no children.

Yet my marital/motherhood status is unrelated to the hoards of toddlers, teethers and newborns increasingly crowding what were once adult-only domains as recently as 10 years ago. I'm not doing the typical complaining about the wee ones running around a grocery store screaming at the top of their lungs while their tuned-out mother carefully reads a baked beans label. I am also not speaking of the colicky youngster who makes the wait in the bank line an air-conditioned hell. I've even become somewhat accustomed to getting my foot stepped on, my butt smacked, and twice, my shoe untied, by unmanned adults-in-the-making. These are built-in situations one must endure to live in a functioning society.

What I'm referring to is best exemplified by an outing to The Cheesecake Factory in Los Angeles . It happened over two months ago, but things haven’t changed.  On a Wednesday (still a school night at that time) a fellow non-breeder and myself were seated for dinner at 10:45pm. A screech – not a cry – pierced the night air (yes, we were outside). I wearily glanced to the right and there they were: a series of people unrelated by blood but silently unified in their defiance of common sense and consideration for others.

Table 1: A large group of old friends ordered yet another round of wine as three children between the ages of six and ten lied across several laps in the interest of trying to sleep. One boy's head was wedged between his father's/uncle's/random man's knee and the table. A silent protest bested only by monks during the Vietnam War.

Table 2: Here is where the pterodactyl was yelling at the top of his/her lungs. A young couple in the middle of a heated conversation glanced at the baby before fanning a napkin in his/her face. To entertain? To frighten? The infant only responded with increased fits of yelping. The baby was dressed in purple (unbundled) so I could not determine his/her sex. Perhaps an indication that he/she was too young to be out this late in the first place.

Table 3: The grand prize was an assortment of couples quietly eating as a three-year-old raced around their table after an older sibling. "Frankie," a man said with a mouth full of food. (Finally, I thought, a voice of reason.) "Don't run so fast."

I turned back to my dining partner. "I can't do this."

"Yeah," he replied. "I actually had to walk out on the last R-rated movie I went to because of all the crying. I counted three babies, but I might have missed some."

We were moved to a table inside, finally surrounded by suitable dining companions: slightly drunk adults who laughed out loud and sang some of the most pathetic renditions of "Happy Birthday" I've ever heard.

"What's the freakin' deal with people these days? Is there a shortage of babysitters or something?"

"Nope," my friend responded. "The restaurant's full of us."