Call it the perfect lining of the solar system. One of those “New Moon” type nights or whatever. My wife and I were lucky enough to score some pretty solid seats to yesterday’s Tom Petty show. With that, we encountered a small problem. One of our past babysitters (my mom) was attending the same show. The other babysitter, (her mom) was working. For the first time in our parental lives, we were going to have to leave Holden with SOMEONE ELSE.

Clearly, something like this would require a lot of deep, drawn out research. So I started…Wikipedia suggested the babysitting order go like this:

(1) Grandparents
(2) Trustworthy members of the bloodline
(3) Trustworthy friends
(4) Untrustworthy members of the bloodline
(5) Untrustworthy friends
(6) TV
(7) That neighbor who sits on his front porch and sharpens his knives all day. (What a lovely set he has)

Enter Paige, my wife’s 20-something sister who happened to be the only person on the trustworthy bloodline available. Rules are rules, and so she was tagged as the overseer of all things Holden for a few hours.

I would be doing you all a major disservice if I didn’t at least introduce you to Paige. Here is a quick bio I wrote about her:

The biggest positive? She was cheap; I gave her my pair of tickets to Wednesday’s Magic game. She had to sit through that mess as the Magic went down 30 at one point.

Paige made her way over to the house around 6. We quickly swamped her with every step of Holden’s being. This is where Holden’s food is. This is how you wipe him. If it’s an emergency call “9.1.1.” first, then call us. We keep the gas masks in the hall closet. Should the Soviets make it stateside, there is a lot of room in the crawl space below the house. You will find several tins of Vienna Sausages hidden in a cinder block. Set up camp there until we sneak our way back.

Between our parents there are 7 children. I am one of four. My wife is one of three. Naturally, we trust them with Holden because we know we made it through our childhood and into our 30s without being maimed. The times they watched Holden just had a different vibe to it.

I’ll admit it; a little bit of the pillar of fatherhood that I envision myself to be was cracking. Not that I didn’t trust my sister in law, I knew she’d do great. It was that separation anxiety that one experiences when leaving their kid with an “untrained” human being.

So we head to the show, telling ourselves we weren’t texting. We weren’t calling. We weren’t doing anything but watching the concert. We had the impossible task of separating ourselves from Holden or we wouldn’t be able to enjoy the evening. Somehow, It worked. We became engulfed in the music and let our guard down.  We were only a few songs in when a text came through on the wifey’s phone. I don’t remember the exact wording, but it said something to the extent of…”Holden peed on me”.

Well, his hose has a quick trigger, and the accuracy of Wyatt Earp to boot. We had been the subject of attack on many occasions ourselves.  I guess I should have warned her.

“Bravo young man,” I thought, “Keep Aunt Paige on her toes.”

After an excellent show we got home and the house was in order. No one was cowered in the corner. There were no fire trucks lining the street. No loud panic alarms. The Soviets hadn’t made landfall. Everything was as we left it.

Wildcard came through. Hail to the babysitter.