Da rules: I post an anecdote that may or may not be true. You guess which it is, based on your knowledge of me and my curious ways. Whoever gets it right gets a point when the contest closes. Here we go:

My first babysitting experience

I was a young teen and had managed to fool my parents into believing I was a young, responsible man. Boy, did they find out different.

My first stint at babysitting my little brother (he's seven years younger) was to be a two hour stretch while the parents went out to a fancy dinner. While they dressed to the nines I amused Lil Bro and everybody was in good humor by the time they were ready to leave. I managed to completely hide my incredible nervousness at the responsibility being placed in my hands.

About five minutes after they drove off I went to the bathroom. I re-entered the family room to see the couch cushions on the floor and Lil Bro happily chewing on something. I immediately panicked. What was he eating? A bug? A razor blade? Coins? Anything at all could have been stuck underneath those cushions!

I jumped at him and tackled him to the cushions and started yelling at him to spit it out. I realize in hindsight that this was not the optimal method to get food out of a little kid in a calm and effective manner. He started bawling and choking on what was in his mouth. I dug in with my fingers in the patented Rescusi-Ann preliminary lifesaving routine. I'd had CPR training with the Boy Scouts only a short while before so the half remembered techniques were dangerously effective. The mouth clear worked and I didn't even lose a finger.

What I scooped out of his mouth was the remains of a Dorito. It was a masticated mess but I was able to determine what it was because as a young male teen I was quite experienced with the qualities of well chewed foods. Let's just say that boys are gross and leave it at that. Additionally, there were a few other Dorito bits still on the naked couch. Identification positive.

I bet you're thinking "Phew! That must have been a relief to discover it was just a Dorito." Oh, how wrong you are. It was no relief at all. You see, I was well aware of the effects of food spoilage. I also knew that we hadn't had Doritos in the house in nigh on forever (at least a couple of weeks, anyway). This was no ordinary Dorito from the bag, y'all. This was a spoiled rotten Dorito. A poison Dorito!

I ran to the phone. Mom had prepared me well and there was a list of phone numbers on the fridge. Which I couldn't reach from the phone. I dropped the phone and ran to the fridge to get the list. The phone was one of those old fashioned stronger than shuttle-craft tiles Princess wall mounts so it fortunately survived my poor treatment of it. I dialed the restaurant where they were eating. When the poor soul on the other end picked up I started bawling.

"My little brother ate poison! Waaaaaah! I need my Mom! Waaaaaah! I don't know what to do! Waaaaaaah!"

This must have been quite the special treat for the fellow. Answer the phone at your classy restaurant and be greeted by bawling children in two part harmony (Lil Bro had not even contemplated stopping his crying over my assault yet). The very nice gentleman from the restaurant was either used to calls of this nature or had kids of his own because he managed to calm me down enough to get the critical information of who my parents were. They had not arrived at the restaurant yet but if I could just hold on and he'd [click]

No time for restaurant people who didn't have my Mom there. I had to do something and (unfortunately for Lil Bro) the restaurant guy had calmed me down just enough that I remembered what to do for poisonings. I ran back to the fridge.

It was full of useful items. Activated charcoal. Ipecac. Milk.

I didn't remember which of them to use and didn't know what category of poison "Old Dorito" fell under anyway. I grabbed all three and made a bulimic cocktail out of them - a big glass of milk with healthy doses of charcoal and Ipecac. Now all I had to do was get Lil Bro to drink it. I accomplished this in the time honored fashion of older brothers everywhere: instilling terror.

"You ate poison! If you don't drink this you are going to die!"

Exact words, y'all. I remember those starkly to this very day. I was pretty much screaming them at the top of my lungs too.

He took swigs of the vomitorium special between bouts of crying uncontrollably. I encouraged him as best I could. Mostly it was repetitions of my prior instruction which, oddly enough, didn't seem to calm him down at all.

I went back to the phone and called the restaurant again. Mom had to be there by now, right? It was busy.

Many of you probably don't understand the concept of busy signals. Way back in the day we didn't have things like call waiting so if you called somebody who was already on the phone you just got this tone that told you the line was busy. Weird shit, eh?

I kept trying the number over and over, yelling at Lil Bro to drink faster in between attempts. It was busy, busy, busy.

I almost started to cry again until my glance went over that list of phone numbers again. Number two was the Poison Control Center. Eureka! I dialed them.

A very nice lady answered and began to ask me questions about the situation when I heard a siren. It got loud really quickly. I had just related to the poison lady that the cause of concern was a Dorito when the front door flew open and my Mom ran into the house. Lil Bro lost it completely at that point and the full waterworks and bawling went into overdrive. She ran to him and picked him up to comfort him. Just as the policeman walked in the front door he vomited up a combination of dinner, Doritos, Ipecac, charcoal and milk all over her.

I handed her the phone and said "It's Poison Control, Momma. Can you talk to them?"

The fact that I am alive right now is ample proof that my mother should be sainted.

The missing bits: The maitre-d who I had spoken with at the restaurant immediately called the police after I hung up on him. My parents got there while he was still on the phone with them. They dispatched a patrol car and ambulance while my mother broke land speed records to get home and my step-dad continuously tried to call me from the restaurant. He kept getting a busy signal.

So, anybody need a babysitter?