“The Nanny Diarrheas”

Thinking about nannies gives me diarrhea. You have a kid, because you’ve always wanted a kid. You have a job, because kids are expensive. To work the job to pay for the kid, you pay someone else to raise the kid. The harder you work, the more you can give your kid. Except for the thing they need most. They get less of that. They get less of you. You get diarrhea.

I kiss Juliet on the forehead every morning while I reach for my overcoat and briefcase. Twelve hours later, I peek into her dark room and listen to her breathe. I hang the overcoat up and put the briefcase down without making a sound. It makes me wonder.

Now Melissa is going back to work. We’re both lawyers, and neither of our salaries by itself will cut it. Juliet is a genius. She’ll go to a private college in New England. She’ll major in art history or creative writing. It will cost half a million dollars. We’re hoping after all that, she’ll be a teacher. Anything but a lawyer.

We’ve been googling for nannies for weeks. By “we,” I mean Melissa. There’s a million applicants. Most are shit.

One woman wrote, “I love infants and toddlers. They are cute and nice.”

Translation: It took me twenty minutes to think of and write down these two sentences. Twenty more to proofread them. That didn’t leave me any time to consider whether they made me sound stupid. Should I have spelled “nice” with an “s”?

Another woman wrote, “I have four treasures of my own and would love to bring Juliet into my home in northeast Philadelphia and watch her with my other children. Jesus saves.”

Translation: I have four kids who smear shit on my walls. Leave your child with me and they will teach her to smear shit on your walls. I’d bring them all to your house, so that we could all smear shit on your walls together, but I’m too lazy to leave my apartment. If you’re Jewish, you are going to hell.

Another woman wrote, “I am 20 weeks pregnant and am looking for a way to kill some time.”

Translation: Seriously?

Somehow, Melissa found a couple of candidates she likes. One designs jewelry and the other loves yoga. They both live in Northern Liberties and wear tall boots. They both kind of look like Melissa. It makes me wonder. We want someone who will read books to Juliet and take her on long walks. We want someone to do all the things we would do, if we were doing them.

Time out.

Juliet is crying. It’s been ten minutes. It’s time to Ferberize her.

I go into Juliet’s room and scoop her out of her crib. She stops crying. I bounce her. Her eyes get heavy. I put her down, eyes shut. Her head touches the mattress. Her eyes shoot open. She pauses. She looks at me, silently, her lips trembling. Her mouth opens wide enough to swallow our teeny tiny nanny frontrunner – still not a sound. And then Juliet erupts.

I walk out of the room. Juliet’s about-to-burst face stuck in my head. I’ve been told to let her cry, and that’s what I’m going to do.

Actually, that’s what I’m going to tell a nanny to do.

The other thing I’m going to do is say that Daddy was not home on Friday night. He was playing poker with Uncle Fox and Josh Gross. Fox and Gross were both playing for this paragraph. And Daddy lost.