When you are autistic, such as Lee, you need a good babysitter. The trick is finding one. Over the past fourteen years, we have had many babysitters. First, there was Carol, who was our usual sitter. Unfortunately, she and I did not get along. This was because she would not help me with my homework while she insisted I do my homework in the room where she was watching stupid soap operas. It is impossible to concentrate on math when someone is talking about burying a dead body on TV.

When Mom could not get Carol she would try a long list of back-up sitters. There was this one sitter we had who was a real hippy. She was nice enough, but she smelled terrible because she rarely took a bath and when she did she would keep the water for future bathing. She did this because she apparently believed the all-natural smell of body odor was fine and she was saving water. Even Lee noticed it, and he did not hug her as much as he hugged other people.

Then there was another babysitter, who was also a hippy, but she was not afraid of Lee and she smelled just fine. One thing that was a little distracting was she never shaved her armpits. This was very noticeable in the summer when everyone was in sleeveless shirts. Maybe she was French or something. Luckily, Lee actually liked that, because whenever he would hug her, he noticed she was fuzzy around there.

So he would start petting her armpits like it was a small pet dog that lived under her arm.