There was a group playdate for older charge's classmates yesterday. Being a nanny in a group of moms usually goes one of two ways - you're treated as a peer or ignored. Either one works for me, frankly, with ignored being slightly preferable. Yesterday I had a 5-mo.-old baby strapped to my chest and was chasing a toddler around so there wasn't much room for conversation, but I did have a few weird run-ins.
One mom talked non-stop about how she had been a nanny when she was 23 and oh it was great the people were so wealthy and it was such a cush job and oh by the way she ended up fucking the dad and ruining a marriage and gee those kids are almost in their 20's now and she wonders if she did them any lasting damage. Thanks for sharing. She also told me all about her fabulous career in movie makeup which ended, tragically, when "I had this one." (The last bit of info conveyed as she "playfully" punched her two year old on the arm.) Way to hate your kid.
I have to be a little bit vague about this next conversation because it relates to one of S's most prominent clients and I wouldn't want any accidental Google hits causing trouble for him. Older charge's best friend at school is a little girl whose name is S**die B*rd. I asked the mom if that was her real name or a nickname and, well, whoa. I got the full low-down on this woman's obsession with a certain presidential family and how she has all kinds of EllBeeJay paraphenalia and she's tried to meet the family several times but it never worked out and if S**die B*rd had been a boy of course her name would have been L****don and on and on. At the beginning of this litany of weirdness, I thought she was kidding and almost made a smartass comment. I'm glad I didn't because this woman was positively reverent when talking about these people. So did I tell her that S. cooks for them on a fairly regular basis? You bet your ass I did. She couldn't wait to get home and tell her husband, who apparently shares her obsession. Tee hee. S. was aghast when I told him this, although I guess this particular family is considered royalty by a large part of the Texas population...
I have more to say but the church on our block is having a huge garage sale and I gotta go get me some.