If you’ve never babysat 27 eight-year-olds, you have not learned the true meaning of suffering.

My luck has never been good, particularly on weekends. I was ready to chill with a nice cup of hot tea and watch movies all day when I received a call from my neighbor.

Turns out she had a group of 27 eight-year-olds gathered for a birthday party. And when she asked me if I’d like to help out, I said yes without even thinking about it.

I like to imagine myself as at least a semi-intelligent lifeform, but the minute I showed up at the party, I began to see that I was knee-deep in trouble, and the trouble level was steadily rising.

The party was at the local fire station since a few of the dads of said 27 eight-year-olds were volunteer firemen.

Immediately, the cacophony began: “Can I ride the firetruck? Can I spray the firehose? Can I turn on the alarm?”

And I, ever-indulgent, chided, “I don’t know, can you?”

I immediately got doused with a cup of water. Thankfully, it wasn’t out of the hose, but merely thrown by a good-natured, fun-loving tyke whom I would have loved to scream at.

The big event of the day was pin the tail on the donkey. The kids yelled at the adults to participate at a volume loud enough to cause the windows to shake.

I volunteered to go first, if only to stop the screaming. But the minute the blindfold went over my eyes, I heard a gasp and a squishy sound.

If you thought handling a herd of eight-year-olds was bad, imagine being turned loose among them blindfolded.

People were screaming, crying, or just plain throwing punches (at least I felt they were). I definitely took a few solid whacks on the rib cage.

When I finally managed to tear the blindfold off my eyes, I saw what had happened: some child had accidentally tipped over the birthday cake. It was now on the floor.

Even better, some enterprising and intelligent youngster was scooping up frosting and launching it at people.

I would have loved to join him, but I had a job to do.

Channeling the patience of 1,000 babysitters, I grabbed the cake-thrower by the scruff of his neck, booted him over to his parents, and took the cake off the floor.

For a millisecond, I was tempted to launch it at someone. But foresight prevailed. I used the cake trowel to remove the parts that had touched the ground and offered the rest for dessert.

Some kids were too grossed out to eat the cake. Others went for it with gusto. I proclaimed my babysitterdom a success.

After the kids had eaten and scattered off to play other party games, I put my blindfold back on.

It wasn’t to play pin the tail on the donkey. It was just to relax. I gave me, myself, and I some time to relax—and to eat a massive slice of birthday cake.

Who says babysitters can’t have fun?

Copyright 2025 Alexandra Paskhaver, distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate. Alexandra Paskhaver is a software engineer and writer. Both jobs require knowing where to stick semicolons, but she’s never quite; figured; it; out. For more information, check out her website at https://apaskhaver.github.io.