When I was 14 I signed up for a town program that gave kids working papers.

I didn’t really want to work because I was lazy as shit. While everyone else played a sport or was in a club, you could find me on my couch eating and watching General Hospital, then Oprah, then falling asleep to the soothing sound of Bob Ross’s voice as he tap-tap-tapped away on the canvas with his 2-inch flat brush while making happy little trees. I’d wake up when Lol called me for dinner.

That was my routine for years: school, eat, watch TV, sleep, eat. It was heavenly.

But… since I was the type of person that would most definitely jump off that proverbial bridge if all my friends were doing it (except when it came to sports or clubs), I went and got myself working papers.

Fear of missing out, or as the kids like to call it “FOMO”, isn’t new, and since I had major FOMO disorder, I wasn’t going to be the only one not rolling in that minimum-wage dough.

I got my first babysitting job through that program. It was for a woman with two kids, a boy and a girl, who lived in the new condo community behind my house.

When I got there, the woman and another woman (who I assumed was her roommate) were ready to leave. She gave me the basic instructions, said I could eat anything I wanted (yesss) and left.

I gave myself a tour of the condo. Really nice. The Kitchen, Living Room, and Dining Room were downstairs, three bedrooms upstairs.

“Wait, a minute.” I thought, “There’s the boy’s bedroom, there’s the girl’s bedroom, and there’s the mom’s bedroom. Where does the roommate sleep?”

I stood in the mom’s room for a minute and assessed the situation. Confused and feeling heady from the thick cloud of Opium perfume that still hung in the air, I slowly did a 360 of the room.

I looked at the huge walk-in closet and thought, “The roommate can’t sleep in there – it’s stuffed with clothes and there’s no bed. Maybe there’s another room I didn’t notice.”

After a secondary analysis of the upstairs, my keen detective skills determined I had not missed an additional bedroom.

I looked up and saw a door that pulled down from the ceiling and thought, “Her room can’t be in the attic, can it?” After wayyyy too long, I decided that could not be an option.

Thinking back, I feel sorry that this woman entrusted such a complete and utter moron with the care of her children.

Back in the mom’s room I looked at the chaise lounge that was next to the Queen size bed. I came to the conclusion that this was where the roommate slept.

On the chaise lounge.

Next to the Queen size bed.

Yes everybody, as a matter of fact, I actually can be this dumb.

They were a coupleeee, not roooomatesss!

I’d like to say that I finally made this discovery on my own, but I’m pretty sure I went home and told Teara the situation and she let me in on what was really going on. I’m also pretty sure I didn’t fully believe her.

It’s not that I was opposed to same-sex couples, it was just new to me. The only thing I knew about lesbians in 1990 was what I learned through the tawdry lens of Hollywood’s portrayal of them (think Karen O in Reform School Girls) – not real-life moms with kids situations. It was so normal yet so foreign to me that my little brain couldn’t comprehend it.

*Edit- Wendy O. Williams was in Reform School Girls. Karen O is the lead singer of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. The “O” threw me off.

I quit after the second time I babysat. It had nothing to do with their sexual orientation, it had to do with their parsimonious orientation, meaning – they were cheap bitches! She refused to pay me more than $10 for the entire night!!

The only reason I went back was because I thought she made a mistake when she paid me the first time. I hadn’t looked at the money until I got home because I was embarrassed to count it in front of her.

When the program people told me how much I’d get paid, I thought they meant $10 an hourrr…not for the whole friggin night! I could’ve collected 5 cent return cans in the same amount of time – while hanging out with my friends – and still made more money than that!

I addressed it with her the next time I babysat and she was like, “No, that’s how much I’m paying you.” and wouldn’t budge. I never went back again.

So even though I basically got $2.00 an hour (wtf?!) from that job, I learned an extremely valuable lesson:

Not all lesbians are skinny, overly-tanned women with bleach blonde high-ponytails wearing leather bikinis and taking over reform schools. They can also be classy (albeit cheap) moms who wear expensive perfume and have closets that I envy to this day.

I often have to remind myself that I should never assume I know everything about someone or something just because I’ve experienced one part of it. Except when it comes to 14-year-olds watching my kids. I would never let that happen knowing how I was as thick as 2 short planks 😳