Don't Sleep with the Au Pair

Sometimes I'll be having a conversation with my husband, when I'll say "Oh, that's so funny. I'm going to blog about that." To which he'll reply, "Are you really going to blog about every mundane aspect of your life?" To which I reply, "Mundane? Believe me, in the blogosphere, my blog is on the cutting edge of excitement. A lot of blogs are like "I have not passed a bowel movement for four days. Maybe I will take a laxative," or "my dog Bruce looks a little off color, should I take him to the vet?"

Mundane indeed! My blog! I mean, really!

Today I'm performing a vital service to my readers. I'm dispatching some advice which may keep some of you out of trouble.

What I'm basically saying is: Don't Sleep with the Au Pair.

I don't mean from a moral point of view. Just that it could land you in hospital. My friend Cheryl, who coordinates au pairs locally, said they recently had an incident where a mother came home to find the au pair on top of the husband, and naked, obviously, and um, interacting with her husband in a non-verbal fashion. As far as I can tell, the au pair wasn't doing anything wrong. The girl was home. She was theoretically 'watching' the kids. It was the husband who should have been at work.

Well, apparently the wife didn't see it that way. She grabbed a baseball bat and started whacking the husband and the au pair. The police arrived and both the au pair and the husband had to be taken to hospital (don't worry, they have both made a full recovery!)

So the moral of the story is, if you must get an au pair, get an ugly one, preferably one with a moustache. Actually, talking of moustaches, Cheryl said they also have male au pairs on their books. I was quite tempted to get one actually. "Yes, I see," I said to Cheryl, "you can get me a nineteen year old Swedish male au pair to help me around the house." Goodness me, I was thinking, when she mentioned the price of hiring such a 'manny', that's cheap. And unlike a vibrator, he would never run out of batteries. "Hang on Sven," I'd say, "I just need you to do some heavy lifting in the bedroom." And he'd be awfully happy to help, because he'd be committed to helping the family, and he wouldn't want mommy to be bored.

And then my husband would arrive home and find me on top of the manny, and reach for a baseball bat.

No. It's not worth it, even to have a Swedish hunk on tap all day. And let's face it, he might not want to continuously perform, he'd probably point out some tedious section in his contract that specified that 'employees cannot be asked to perform services above and beyond the call of duty.' Like having sex with me could ever be a chore! But anyway, I'm just saying, the reality might not be as rosy as the fantasy.

So basically, I'm telling you, sleeping with the au pair, don't try it. Or if you do ...at least go to a hotel.

Another bit of advice I can give you is: don't marry a younger man. Mine is eight years younger (27) and while I don't usually notice the age difference because he is more mature than me (who isn't?), sometimes the age gap gets hammered home. There was one incident a few years back where a woman at a party mistook him for my son. I'm usually not that touchy, but that really got under my skin. Demi Moore look out! Today Ashton adores you, maybe he will always adore you. But sooner or later you will find yourself in a Dorian Grey situation. You will be the picture up in the attic, getting older and older, while your husband's portrait remains as unlined as the day you met him.

Take this incident. While the kids and I were away over the summer, my husband had been going to Lowes to buy supplies for a bathroom he's building. Yesterday he went there with our three year old daughter, Sausage. Apparently, some check out girl he's been chatting to over the summer, asked if Sausage was his little sister. He laughed and said, "No, she's my daughter." Apparently, the girl's face crumpled like a paper bag. Apparently she is Armenian and he thinks she was angling for an American husband (he's not even American). Apparently, she said, "I thought you were nineteen."

I believe everything, apart from that last bit. Come off it, he looks at least twenty-one!