It's a Dog's Life

I've noticed you can tell a lot about people by the way they spend money, which leads me to our important "what the h?"question for the day: why are most people willing to spend more money on dog care than they are on day care? Any takers?

Case in point -- I am a fly-by-night dog sitter for people in the Salt Lake Area. When folks go on vacation, I visit their home about twice a day to feed the dog, walk the dog, and generally make sure the dog hasn't been doing anything naughty to the furniture. Each visit lasts anywhere from 15 minutes to 30 mintues. Bottom line: the work isn't hard and it doesn't take me very long. I get paid $10-$13 dollars per visit. The average vacation lasts 4 days, in which case I rake in about $100 per job.

Next please consider the ads I found in this week's Union Tribune: "Full-time Nanny wanted for 3 small children. Cooking/light houskeeping/homework help. Must have own car and speak English. $250/week. "

I'm no math genius kids, but my little friend the calculator had some harsh things to say about this. $250/week boils down to $50 dollars per day. Assuming an eight hour work day, this would average out to $6.25 per hour. Do you hear that, Walter Cronkite? $6.25 an hour to care for a life. A human being. $6.25 to guard a child from danger and harm. $6.25 to nourish the child with food, the educate the child, to love the child, to teach the child right from wrong. $6.25 an hour to be a replacement mother while the real parents are off somewhere digging trenches in Albania and meeting with union teamsters. I'm not talking about the mom who has to work or the family can't buy food. We all know there are always the exceptions, and frankly those are boring and I won't talk about them. I'm talking about the parent who abandons their child to hired helpers because working outside the home tickles their liver. The blackberry phone and the h-ing bluetooth welded to their ear makes them think they're God's special little gift to society and heaven help us all if they can't make it to the office on time.

About 5 months ago I was down on my luck and decided to take a charity-case job for a friend of the family. This lady had a little boy about two years old and needed someone to watch her kid while she went to capitol hill to lay diamond eggs and spin hay into gold for the politicians up there. Alright, alright...so I don't really know what she did for the Congressmen, but it must have been stupendously important enough to uproot the child from his father and come all the way to Utah for. Anyhow, so I watched this child for about a month. 8 hours a day, no breaks, no perks and no gasoline reimbursements. They must have thought I could turn cat turds into car fuel for all the driving they made me do. And that's not even the charity-case part. This is the charity-case part: they paid me the same as a 5-year-old kid running a lemonade stand. I made $30 dollars a day on that gig. You got that?? Mr. Calculator says that's $3.75 an hour. That's right, kids. $3.75 an hour to take care of a human life. Strawberry pickers make more than that. Toilet bowl washers make more than that. Illegal immigrant (excuse me, guest worker) coat knitters in the garment district make more than that. For $3.75 I'm willing to keep the child in my living room and make sure he doesn't throw himself out the window. Yeah. Oh I'm sorry, did you want some love with that? It'll cost you extra!

Moral of the story? I will never child sit again. I prefer watching dogs. It's faster, it's easier and far more pleasant. The dog will never spit up on my shoes or complain to me that it's bored. Best of all, the good pay suggests that the owners actually give a crap about the quality of attention their pet is receiving. You see? People DO care. About their pets. Not their children, apparently.

This precious rant is brought to you by the letter Gee. As in, Gee...can't we all just get along? Now go eat kiwi shavings and don't ever ask me to babysit again. If anybody needs me I'll be out back picking strawberries with Javier and Paco.