One-Armed Babysitter

A couple of weeks ago, I went to an instalment of the Upper West Side moms group. Only one woman from the previous week was there, so two new faces. One looked as if she had, at one point, been a model, but for a brand like Stussy. The other was a former school teacher from California who later told me she hated New York, and wanted to go back to the west coast.  All she had here, she said, was her family and her church.

We were in a park in Harlem this time, down 110th St., a few blocks from my apartment. As I laid my worn Wreck Beach sarong beside their matching JJ Cole park blankets (they were the exact right weight for the park, but still easily foldable) they talked about the first birthday party for the kid of a mutual friend at a "summer estate" in the Hamptons.

"They had rented a circus tent and a few performers. Like, clowns and magicians," said the model.

"And a birthday buffet," said the one I'd met the week before, a non-profit fundraiser.

"And there was a llama." 

"A llama," I said. "It's the llama that really brings the party to the next level." 

Just then three loud bangs cracked the air. The entire park- parents, kids, nannies, BBQ-ers, the homeless - went silent, looking towards the spot from which the sound had come.  There was a moment of very tense anticipation. Then the word "car" drifted back over the crowd and the afternoon buzz resumed.  

"Yeah, it was a fun party," the model continued. 

"Were there many kids there?" I asked. 

"It was made clear," the fundraiser said, " in the invite that the party wasn't really for kids." 

"What?" I almost said, but another woman had arrived. The first things I noticed about her, and maybe this says something about me, were the diamond studs and solid gold watch she was wearing with her casual capris and striped Polo shirt. The second thing was the pedicured toes painted red poking out of MK sandals, since they were at my level. 

"Hello everyone!" she said as she unfolded another JJ Cole blanket, then  placed her baby in the middle of the circle with all the other babies. Alice was aggressively tugging the Baby Einstein radio from the model's daughter. The model kept glancing over, frowning, looking concerned while trying not to look concerned. I gently pried her little fingers off of it and handed it to the girl. 

Talk turned to babysitting services. "My friend has a funny story about that service," said gold watch. "She signed on, and received a ton of emails from potential babysitters. This one candidate looked perfect. My friend called her references, and then talked to her on the phone. The girl sounded great, and she hired her to come babysit for a date night, sight unseen. The night comes, and my friend opens the door, and the babysitter only has one arm."

"Ha!" I laughed. "That is kind of funny. A surprise one-armed babysitter."  

Gold watch looked at me stone-faced. "That's not the funny part."

"Oh." 

"My friend had spoken with her former employers, three of them, and the agency, and no one had even mentioned that she only had one arm. It's just amazing that no one brought it up."

"This shows," said the school teacher, "that many "disabled" people can function just fine in an able-bodied world. To them there's no difference worth mentioning."

"Yeah," I said. "She probably did a great job. But at first it would be startling to see that the person you had hired to take care of your baby had, like, one arm."

"Obviously, this woman wasn't inhibited by her difference," gold watch snapped. The other women looked down at the grass. She was obviously offended that I had found humour in this part of the story. So what was the funny part?

"The funny part," continued gold watch, leaning forward a little to talk past me at the school teacher. "My friend was desperately trying to text her husband to warn him of this, since he was coming home a little later. She was SO worried he was going to say something inappropriate! Husbands, right?"

"Ha ha" said the school teacher.

Gold watch, who seemed to have a pretty strong command of the mommies group, ignored me for the rest of the visit, which, for me, wasn't that much longer. I guess she was offended because she thought I was laughing at the one-armed babysitter. But what she failed to get, I thought as pushed the stroller and stomped home, was that I was laughing at the mom. SHE was the butt of the joke, the one dealing with the surprise and initial awkwardness. And yes that awkwardness acknowledges difference, but a one-armed babysitter IS difference. Had the story been that the one-armed babysitter changed diapers with her feet, then the laughter would have been at her expense, and I'd understand the offence.

Or maybe something else was dangling in the web of UWS mommy-group dynamics, something having to do with my sarong. I have no idea.

Anyway, whatever. Alice update! We went to the zoo yesterday, and for the first time she saw all the animals that inhabit her books. Her eyes were wide as she frantically waved to the giraffes, zebras and gorillas. "Hi! hi! hi!"Hanging out with her is kind of the best.