Our Babysitter, Liz
Foot in the Popcorn
I have a great story for you from when my three daughters were children. We had a babysitter who was like part of the family. Liz lived across the street, the youngest sibling of five girls and one boy.
Within minutes of the moving van leaving, Liz was at our door. “Please, let me be your babysitter.” She was only eleven at the time, but I often left her ‘in charge’ while I took a shower, or pulled a few weeds in the yard. By the time Liz was in high school, she had become “Auntie Diz” to my three little girls.
One Saturday, Liz came over to tell me she and her sister, Anne, were going to a movie, but if I needed her, she could still babysit that evening. Knowing this, I was surprised when Liz was back within an hour and sobbing.
“Liz? What’s wrong, sweetie?”
“OMG, I’m so embarrassed I could die! Anne and I saw these two cute guys we know from school and we watched where they sat —we planned to go and sit in the same row. After we got our sodas and stuff, we went down where they were in the first two aisle seats in the row.
Anne and I excused ourselves to get by them to the next two seats. Before the movie started, I decided I should probably go to the restroom.”
“So what happened?” I handed her a Kleenex.
“I excused myself and started back past them and OMG, I didn’t see there was one of those huge buckets of popcorn on the floor and I stepped in it! My foot got STUCK IN THE BUCKET! I shook it a little to try and get it off, but it wouldn’t come off!”
I handed Liz another tissue, trying to picture this in my mind. “Liz, it’s okay. The boy probably wasn’t even aware of it.”
“No, you don’t understand! I couldn’t get the bucket off my foot, so as I ran up the aisle and into the restroom, the foot with the bucket went CLOMP! It was just AWFUL … step-CLOMP, step-CLOMP, step-CLOMP! Everyone saw and heard me and I’ll never be able to look at those guys at school again!”
Then seeing her sister pull up at their house across the street, Liz left. I was able to hold it together until Liz went home … then I laughed until I thought I would die —I still do whenever I think of it.
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Awww that poor girl! But, yes, it IS hilarious as long as it happens to someone ELSE! This is even worse than the "dragging the toilet paper on the heel of the shoe" fiasco or worse yet, the "back of the skirt tucked into the panty hose" bathroom horror. This has happened more often than one might imagine if one is to believe social media reports. It even happened to me once, but I caught it before actually leaving the ladies room.