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This is Joanne's "Au Pair on the Tear", a series of articles first published on our old site, the now defunct MatchstickCats.com in 2005

1: No standing for the Three Musketeers

First of all I would like to introduce myself, I am Jo, girlfriend of the editor (the only reason my writing is up!!!!! And I can admit it!!!). before I begin my ‘au-pair on the tear' story –well the first instalment anyway – I would like to apologise to all of the MatchstickCats.com regulars for the slackening involvement of your beloved editor and chief, I have been keeping him very busy, I'm quite demanding but luckily a little geek tolerant also! Don't blame Neal he hasn't been getting much sleep, I'm sure you will be getting lots more belches in awhile when the novelty wears off!! Ok enough said!!

This story is based on a true story but of course it has been slightly embellished, I will never tell which parts are real and which parts are not.

When I was eighteen and my leaving certificate results came out I was absolutely devastated that I was 25 points short for the course I wanted to do in college. – for our American and English buddies this means that I got a ‘C' in Geography when I needed a ‘B' – in fact it was this disappointment that prompted me to apply to an agency in the hopes of spending a year in America as an au-pair. Surprise, surprise the brochures made being an au-pair look amazing and assured me that I would never forgive myself if I didn't go for it!! Yes going for it entailed travelling to the states by my self to live with and work for complete strangers, sorry, not complete strangers I did of course receive a letter, some photos and two phone calls from the family before I committed myself to them for a year!! I honestly did not realise that you didn't have to take the first family that contacted you. I know, I know but I was quite naïve and innocent back in then, not to mention idealistic!

Anyway, how excited was I? Going off to America for a year with no mammy to nag at me and I knew (from the brochures) that this was going to be an amazing adventure. I was raring to go, couldn't wait to get away – Bray is nice and all but how could it compare to a year in America ?

The adventure began in New York with a “training week” for all eighty au-pairs who arrived at the same time as me, of these eighty three of us were from non-Scandinavian countries. It didn't take long for us to become known as the three musketeers, we spent all of our time together as we were the only fluent English speakers of the group. Pam (a Scottish girl) was heading for Philadelphia while James (an English guy) was heading to sunny California . I was destined for Washington D.C. and I couldn't wait! Us musketeers did not need to attend the obligatory English classes, for obvious reasons so we basically wandered around campus and ate for the week!!

I'm sure that you are all finding it quite difficult to believe that I was naïve or innocent once –no wait a minute, you don't know me yet!- well if you are let the following little real life anecdote reassure you as to how innocent and naïve I was at the beginning of my big American adventure.

All of us ‘wannabe' au-pairs were brought to the big Apple for a day trip before we headed off to our families, how exciting?! We were dropped off on a street across from the Rockefeller centre and we were trying to decide where to go first and what to do (when I say we I mean the three musketeers of course, we were inseparable). It seems that I'm quite bossy so as it was taking awhile to decide I had James and Pam walking from one end of the block to the other and back again several times. Eventually James asked

“Why are we walking from one end of the block to the other?”

it was then that I realised that he had not seen the sign or that he wanted to ignore it, now I was very new to this country and I wanted to stay for the whole year so I was not going to mess it all up in my first week by not heeding the signs that were all along the street! As you can imagine I quickly pointed out to both James and Pam that the sign said “NO STANDING”. Well, this was met with a sudden halt of the walking and uncontrollable laughter from the other two musketeers. As James rolled around on the ground laughing at me he managed to tell me that the signs were meant for cars and not people, really, how was I to know? I had never seen a car "stand" before.

It is at this point that I have to specify that before I left for America it had been years since we owned a car and I had never in my life driven a car or noticed the signs associated with the driving of a car!! I've said it before and I'll say it again, its not like cars can even stand!!

The end for now.

2: The Tatoo

I just want to tell you about leaving New York and the other two Musketeers to go and meet my new host family.

It was kind of sad having to leave my two new buddies behind and head off to another part of this huge new country where, once again I would have to meet new people and hope that they liked me and that I would like them!

At the time I had two tattoos. Now one of them I was not worried about, as I knew that my new family were never going to see it – but the other one was on my upper left arm, it then consisted of Chinese characters that say (well hopefully they say) the following three words, let me explain. Myself and my cousin got the same characters at the same time! YOUTH, SIMPLICITY and THE FAMILY, I love this tattoo but not everyone likes tattoos so I decided to put a plaster over it so that I could then let my new host parents decide if the children were allowed to see it or not – I thought that this was very mature and sensitive of me - however when I got to the airport the first thing my host father said was

“What did you do to your arm?”

When I explained about the tattoo he actually laughed in my face and I felt like such a fool, I wanted to turn around and get on a plane home. But no! I ventured on.

That really should have been a warning sign; actually in hind sight I think it was that I just chose to ignore it! It is absolutely amazing what one can put up with just because you think it's what you want or that you don't have a choice, you know what – You always have a choice, remember that!!?

Anyway, the kids took to me straight away, as in they were hanging out of me in the airport a few minutes after us meeting! They must have thought that I was a huge teddy bear or something, but whatever, I really liked them too (until I got to know them of course!!)

I had always said to my friends in Bray that if I could have any car at all I would love a metallic green jeep, so you can imagine how excited I was when I saw that the family owned one and I realised that I would get to drive it – once I learned how to drive of course! This made up for the feeling that my new host dad was a bit of an asshole (how easily pleased am I? of course Neal doesn't complain about that!!) I did think that my host mom was kind of cool and felt that we would get on well together, after I knocked some sense into her – no sorry, I didn't realise that until a week or two later!

As you all know I'm Irish so you Americans must be thinking that all I want to do, after leaving Ireland to come be an au-pair in America and after spending my first week in a school in New York, is go to an Irish bar to eat corned beef and cabbage and drink Guinness, apparently a lot of Americans think this, it makes us Irish feel at home or some such other bullshit! I actually hate corned beef* and I had never drank a pint of Guinness in my life, in fact I thought it was only for ugly, lonely auld lads who had no job except that of sitting at the bar all day! But what did I do? I ate my corned beef and cabbage and drank my Guinness like a good little Irish girl and told them how it was just like that at home and stories of how only rich people in Ireland have electricity and indoor toilet facilities, unless you caught a leprechaun and stole his gold, then you could afford such luxuries, I was being my usual sarcastic self and they were believing every word!!

Again in hind sight there were quite a few warning signs that first day and again I did not notice them, for example I should have guessed that I would have a hard slog when I had to feed, correct and change the children twenty minutes after meeting them. The parents had no clue what to do with the two fabulous trophies they owned!! It was not the children's fault at all they were lovely – some of the time at least!

Next time find out about the shopping fiasco and my duties!!!!!

*editor's note: This is a lie. She loves corned beef

3: My year at the Barracks

Once we got to the house that I was to live in for the next year, I realised that “the pool” they had told me so fondly about was actually one of those little blow-up kiddies' pools! Not only that but it was a tiny one, so even if I tried to get into “the pool” I would be stuck and there wouldn't be any room for the children. Well, maybe the youngest one if she sat on my lap. But even then there wouldn't be any water left to play with or swim in!

It was also at this point that I found out that my “balcony” was the size of a postage stamp; basically I could stand still on the “balcony” as much as I wanted, I could even take turns with any friends I might make, we could alternate standing still on the “balcony”! Now I know you're thinking that this doesn't sound too bad so far but the baby's crib was set up in my room! – What is up with that?!

So practically this meant that I could not lock my door, turn on the light or make any noise whatsoever when I was going to bed because as you would expect the baby was sleeping, again not too bad you might say but when the little darling woke up screaming in the middle of the night I was allowed to drag myself (not only out of my slumber but) out of my bed to bring her down to her mom, without waking her dad! Lucky me huh?

Ok let me get on to my duties: I was to present myself showered and dressed by seven am every morning to have my breakfast and prepare breakfast for the children – I was delighted to do this as my host mom thought that sugar cookies were an appropriate breakfast for a one and a half year old and a three and a half year old, who stayed home with me all day I might add!!! After breakfast the children were to be washed and dressed then once the laundry was done (the whole families not just the children's as I believed) and the house was (this really is a quote)

“Army Barracks clean”

I was allowed to bring the children out for a walk – no using the metro for these children, it's just not safe enough for them, apparrantly. Sean (three and a half) was to be wheeled in his buggy while Hannah (one and a half) was carried on my back in some sort of baby carrying contraption, please remember that I was in Washington D.C and it was July with heat I had never experienced before in my life and a horrible, deadly thing called humidity! I am not or was I then by any means fit, and of course anything worth seeing or visiting was twenty or thirty blocks away (all up hill on the way home!!)

I'm not gonna lie. Sean really liked the ‘Natural history museum' and I liked it too, I would pack up a picnic and we would enjoy the stroll to the museum then our picnic but the humidity and the walk home were killer and now that I think back most of the neighbourhoods that we had to wander through were not very desirable, if you know what I mean!

Sorry folks but if you wanna read about the shopping fiasco you will have to wait I'm afraid as if I start I'll only ramble on for another page or two and Neal already commented on the length of my articles * so I'm gonna leave it there until next time. JO

* EDITOR'S NOTE: ‘Scuse me hon…I said they were refreshingly long, or words to that effect…which is a GOOD thing. And I must say I'm impressed at your lack of a need to use an occasional “two cats walk into a bar” story to pad out the articles, as I often do. By the way, I'm still not convinced that you hate cats xx

4: Why do I attract weirdoes?

I want to let you know that I am taking a little detour from my au-pair chronicles, I know I haven't written in ages but I've been really busy. Job hunting for one thing, then so that I will have enough money to keep myself going till September when I venture back to college. So anyway enough excuses. I just want to tell you about my uncanny ability to be harassed by drunken hobos and how weirdoes are always attracted to me. (Luckily for me one of the weirdoes I've met is really nice and we've ended up as a cute couple …………… of weirdoes)

Honestly I can't go anywhere without some stranger either asking me an inappropriate question, making a comment or simply harassing me. I'll just give you a few examples, like the time myself and my friend Christina were in a metro station in Washington D.C waiting for a metro – of course – when a man asked me where we were from, I told him that we were from Ireland so he says

“I know that, which part?”

So even though he had rudely interrupted our conversation, I told him that I was from Wicklow and that Christina was from Tipperary . We were being polite, as you do, and friendly like us Irish are! He then asked me if I drank coffee after my meals, I was a bit perplexed but I continued to be polite and answered him saying

“Yeah usually”

He then informed me that drinking coffee after meals makes you fat. As you can imagine I was a little annoyed that some total stranger thought that he could tell me why I'm fat. Well what could I do but thank him for letting me know what I'm doing wrong in my life. It's obviously not the doughnuts I'm eating for breakfast - it's the coffee after my meals that's doing it. – I want you all to know that I did not give up coffee after my dinner, for some reason I decided not to trust the bothersome, rude guy in the metro station.

Another example happened just yesterday when I went into Burger King on O'Connell street (my own fault cos it was the yucky branch). I was sitting there trying to eat my meal, the new Chicken BLT Baguette meal which is delicious by the way, when this horrible drunk hobo type guy just sits next to me and starts asking me questions, I tried ignoring him but he didn't go away, the fucker, not only that but he was really smelly and he actually put his hand on my food, needless to say I felt sick and had to leave. I did give him a really dirty look before departing which he deserved (Neal can testify as to how scary my dirty looks can be ** ) Unfortunately the dirty hobo didn't get the message as he followed me outside to ask me for a smoke, it was then that I had to tell him to fuck off!

My amazing ability to attract weirdoes does not just apply on the street or in restaurants it also applies on buses, I have no clue as to what I'm doing to encourage these weirdoes. I'm usually just sitting there minding my own business or quietly reading a book. Of course perhaps one of those is the weirdo signal to come talk to me and tell me your life story, as if I want to know? I mean I am an emphatic, sympathetic personbut if I'm sitting on the bus reading or just thinking, I don't want to be bothered by the bearded lady, the drunken slob or the fucker who sits beside me because they smell like garlic and they know that I'm sensitive to it.

Even as I'm writing this I'm babysitting, it's a Saturday afternoon and we heard the ice-cream van so we ran out to get some 99s (ice-cream cones with a “Flake” chocolate bar, for those of you who are wondering) and as I was waiting for the ice-creams, five in total, the ice-cream man told me that he used to work as a valet but had to leave cos he wanted a raise so now he is on his eight day straight working in his uncle's oldest ice-cream van (his uncle has sixteen vans in his fleet.) he lives with his mum and he just bought a jeep that he wants to pay off by the summer.

Now all I said to the man was

“Can I please have two baby cones and three 99s, all with syrup?”

Honestly that is all I said and yet I now know all of the previous information as well as having gotten a 99.

I really do have to wonder what it is about me that compels people to open up like that, don't get me wrong if it was only nice, clean, respectable, good looking people who approached me I would be delighted. Anyway if you're a weirdo I'm sure I'll be seeing you somewhere soon.*

* editor's note: Yeah see you in a while hon

** editor's note: Actually they're quite cute, but apparently others don't feel the same

 

(End of Series)

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