Babysitting Tips

Babysitting is the first paying job for many teenagers. Although not terribly strenuous work, babysitting does require patience, care and responsibility. Here are some tips for first-time babysitters:

1. During your initial interview, remember to ask parents if they happen to own mint coin collections that they hardly ever look at and would not notice missing for months.
2. Be sure the parents who asked you to babysit aren't the couple recently profiled in the newspaper for having sextuplets.
3. If you're new to babysitting, it can be helpful to rent an instructional video, such as Adventures In Babysitting.
4. If the kids want to watch television, pop in a DVD that has those Christian talking vegetables or some shit like that.
5. Remember to bring the frustrated babysitter's secret weapon: duct tape.
6. After the children are in bed and your boyfriend finally comes over, please, at least have the decency to put a darn towel down.
7. Turning up the television really loud will help drown out the sounds of babies crying or children screaming for help.
8. Only allow each child one package of matches per night. Once those are gone, that's it, no more matches until next time.
9. Only let the children play with toys that have sharp edges or points if there is good lighting in the room.
10. If a child insists that the toy he wants to play with does not present a choking hazard, well, then, make him prove it. Yeah, not so smart now, are you, purple boy?
11. At the end of the night, decide which child has been the most well behaved and then send a message to the other children by telling them how much better that child is than them, and that no matter what they accomplish in life, they'll never be as good as that child.
12. Put away electronic toys that might burn or shock a child until they won't fess up as to which one of them was going through your purse.