The Wrong Way to Rock Bottom | UPDATES Fri/Mon

7

Present day

My Worst Day Ever starts with being fired, and ends with being homeless.

It's a Wednesday, so I go to work at my more respectable part time job: a nanny for the Walsh family. The Walsh's have an adorable 6-year-old daughter named Lacy and they pay me well to hang out with her twenty hours a week. I've been working with them for almost a year now and Lacy and I are thick as thieves. The parents are okay as long as they're not in the same room as me when I'm watching Lacy. Mrs. Walsh in particular is a total helicopter mom. Which, I get, Lacy's her only baby. But there's nothing like a hawk-eyed suburban mom breathing down your neck as you cut organic zoodles into bite size pieces and pointing out each piece that is still long enough to be considered a choking hazard for a girl who's been chewing her food for three years to make you reconsider your career choices.

Everything with Lacy goes great that morning. We take a walk, pick tomatoes in her garden, and have a long tea party with every single Disney princess doll that has been manufactured since the beginning of time. Lacy's a cutie, likes to play games where she spins around in sparkly dresses or pretends to be a superhero as I make up the dangerous situations we need rescuing from. However, her favorite thing is to order me around, so my favorite thing has become pretending I don't understand what she wants and frustrating her to the point where she gives up and angrily does it herself. It's the simple things that give me pleasure in life.

I'm making the lunch her mom had written down in the calendar for that day—a hummus and vegetable sandwich on artisan wheat bread—when Lacy pulls up a chair across from me.

"I'm going to help you," she announces.

"You can't use a big knife like this, babe," I tell her, but when her blue eyes fill with tears, I give in and hand her a butterknife that I check to make sure is dull.

We're happily cutting tomatoes (well, I'm cutting, she's basically crushing to a pulp) when Mrs. Walsh unexpectedly popped in. She really likes surprising me by driving the five minutes from her own part time job to "check in".

"Hellooo!" She's all sunny smiles when she comes around the corner, but when she sees the knife Lacy's holding, an expression of horror comes over her face. "Lacy, put that down!"

"Oh, it's okay Mrs. Walsh," I say quickly, as Lacy stares at her tomato in confusion, probably wondering where the imminent danger is. "It's a butterknife, and it's really dull."

"Lacy, put it down," Mrs. Walsh says like a thundercloud. Lacy obediently drops the tomato chunk she's holding, which slides down her dress, leaving a trail of slimy tomato guts behind.

"Honey, give me this." I take the butterknife from her hand. "Don't worry about your dress, I'll clean it up."

"Lacy, go to your room." Mrs. Walsh's gaze is icy. "Mama will be there in a second."

"But me and Lissy are going to make a picnic," Lacy complains. She likes calling me Lissy because it sounds more like her name. Lacy and Lissy.

"Now."

There's no arguing with Mrs. Walsh when she speaks in that tone. Lacy storms off to her room, stamping her chubby kid feet the whole way up the stairs.

"Is something wrong?" I ask, not understanding where the intensity is coming from.

"How many times have I told you not to let Lacy anywhere near knives?" Mrs. Walsh snaps.

The answer is three. Once when I left a knife on the counter while Lissa and I were eating at the table ("She could lunge for it before you have a chance to stop her!"), once when I loaded the dishwasher while Lissa played in the dining room ("She could sneak up and grab it when you're not paying attention!"), and once when I had put the child safety lock for the knife drawer on the fridge door instead of its top ("She could reach it if she climbed on a chair!"). After every conversation, I've been careful not to do the thing again, but I have no idea what I've done this time that Mrs. Walsh finds dangerous. Lacy's station was at the other end of the island, and even if she'd dived across the marble countertop, I don't think she could have reached my knife.

"Oh, it's not a knife, Mrs. Walsh." I hold up the butterknife to her, hoping to show how innocent it was. "It's not even a little sharp. I tested it."

"It is a type of knife!" she insists. "If Lacy starts thinking it's okay for her to use these knives, she might think it's okay to use the sharp ones as well."

"Oh." I don't exactly track with that logic, but I'm not going to say so. "I see."

"Lissa, I can't keep having this conversation with you." Her mouth twists in disapproval. "In the contract, I specifically stipulated that Lacy's safety is the top priority for me. I needed it to be your top priority too."

My brain gets a little caught on the word 'stipulated' (is that like stimulated?), but I quickly promise, "Lacy's safety is top priority for me."

"I don't think it is." Mrs. Walsh looks at me for a moment, like she's trying to decide something. Then she says, "Lissa, I'm afraid we're going to have to let you go."

"Let me go where?" I ask, like an idiot.

So she says, "We're firing you," and that gets the message across.