Keen to impress his celebrity sitters, Tom offers to show them his sporting prowess. They let him take a ball and show off his skills in the lounge. Cue ball flying through the air, followed by the sound of shattering glass, as a French door catches the football. In Tom\u2019s defence, there is a miniature basketball hoop attached to the door inside the house.<\/p>\n
Some babysitters might have steered clear of sharp objects after this, but not Bryn and Ku. Under their watch, the children proceed to chop onions and grate cheese \u2013 most of it even ended up in the dinner (no knuckles were harmed). Assessing Bryn and Ku\u2019s babysitting efforts against standard KPIs, the children, who could hardly be considered independent judges, give zero out of 10. Harsh.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Oops.<\/p>\n
At least they\u2019re not alone. Here, The Spinoff stands in solidarity with Bryn and Ku by sharing our own babysitting fails (or ones we\u2019ve borne witness to).<\/p>\n
Teeth vs skull<\/p>\n
The only real evidence I have that something went wrong is the tooth mark in my forehead. It\u2019s faded over the years but it\u2019s still there; a small divot just below my hairline. I don\u2019t remember much of the incident but from the facts I\u2019ve pieced together over the years, I was playing with my babysitter Raelene in the sandpit. Photos of us together show us smiling and having fun. But they also show one other thing: Raelene\u2019s notably large teeth. It was apparently during some sort of playfight that those gargantuan central incisors nearly burrowed into my skull. Babysitting can leave a lifelong mark and should only be attempted if you have literally no other options. \/ Hayden Donnell<\/p>\n
Flood I and flood II<\/p>\n
My grandmother was looking after us while my parents were out of town. I maybe intentionally blocked the shower and managed to flood the bathroom. Our babysitter only realised what had happened when she saw water coming out of the light fixture downstairs. I\u2019d like to say that was the first and last water-related damage under her watch, but alas. The next time Grandma flew over to look after us the toilet leaked, ruining the ceiling, and she spilled a mug of black tea all over the cream carpet. Since the damage from both incidents was considerable and my parents had just sold the house(!) both the carpet and the ceiling needed to be fixed before we could hand the keys over. Expensive babysitter. But at least she was better than my dad. I ate cigarette butts under his watch. \/ Emma Gleason<\/p>\n
Disaster can strike anywhere, any time.
\nHead meets pool edge<\/p>\n
I was the oldest kid around when my then-girlfriend\u2019s little brother threw a nephew into the pool. He split his head open on the edge, and I had to be the calm \u201cadult\u201d while the little brother ran around crying hysterically. Towels, blood, chlorine. Not a good time. \/ Liam R\u0101tana<\/p>\n
You\u2019re fired<\/p>\n
It happened the first time my parents left me to babysit my little sister. I don\u2019t remember how old I was \u2013 old enough to think I might do some baking. Old enough to think brandy snaps were particularly sophisticated and I should try to make some from scratch. It probably would have been OK if I had poured the sugary liquid into a baking tin. Instead, I poured it onto a baking sheet, with no sides. What a maniac. So, sugary liquid drips straight off the tray and onto the element (this was in ye olden days when ye had elements in the bottom of ye stove). Then I open the oven door (nice, long dangly teatowel in my hand) to check on my brandy snaps\/sugar fire, giving a good, sudden blast of oxygen.<\/p>\n
Two high-risk activities. These are not what Veronica\u2019s brandy snaps looked like; hers were a burned mess.<\/p>\n
Look, the good news is that my dad had just bought a fire extinguisher. The bad news is he had bought it because we\u2019d just lived through a painful, drawn-out renovation and his worst nightmare was that some idiot would burn the whole house down. There were no mobile phones back then, so, after I put the fire out, I just sat there waiting for my parents to come home. At least, I didn\u2019t have to break the news to them. They smelt freshly charred new kitchen before they saw the blackened bench and wall. \/ Veronica Schmidt<\/p>\n
Just browsing<\/p>\n
When I was a kid, maybe around seven years old, I searched something like \u201csex\u201d on Google Images (lol) and it must\u2019ve been on the screen for like five seconds before my teenage babysitter walked around the corner to check on me. The computer froze when I tried to minimise the screen. I ducked under the desk and ripped the power cord out of the wall. Idk if she saw anything but she certainly knew something was up. \u201cEverything all good?\u201d I remember her asking me. Fml. \/ Anon<\/p>\n
Got a nightmare babysitting experience to get off your chest? Tell all in the comments!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In episode three of Singles Club, Bryn and Ku\u2019s brief stint as babysitters goes wrong. The Spinoff staff…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":536905,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[250874,250875,109058,156,1899,250876,111,139,69,1066],"class_list":["post-536904","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-bryn-and-kus-singles-club","tag-brynley-stent","tag-childcare","tag-entertainment","tag-kids","tag-kura-forrester","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-pop-culture"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/536904","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=536904"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/536904\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/536905"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=536904"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=536904"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=536904"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}