Very Sensible Janet

Janet was a very sensible woman.

“You eat too much cheese,” she said to us, every mealtime, as she watched us pile it onto our plates.

“You look silly walking around with a cuddly toy badger on your head,” she said to me, in case I was unaware. Janet never walked around with a badger on her head.

How anyone as sensible as Janet came to be part of our ‘gang’ and living in our house was a mystery to everyone. It was as if the gods had decided that the rest of us couldn’t be trusted on our own without a Janet.

“If you can no long stand up you’ve had too much to drink.” That was another one of Janet’s, she didn’t subscribe to the ‘standing’s overrated’ theory.

Janet even accused Andy of not being entirely serious when he proclaimed his true, undying love for a tin of rice pudding.

Janet, you must understand, was a very sensible woman.

Which is why, when a mutual friend needed a babysitter, her first (and only) choice was Janet. “The rest of you are too silly,” she said.

So that night Janet went round the house of our mutual friend and babysat, while the rest of us stayed home and reaped our usual havoc. Some of us may have eaten too much cheese, others may have walked around with badgers on our head or proclaimed our love of rice pudding, who knows, Janet wasn’t there, and what happens when Janet isn’t there doesn’t count.

Janet put the children to bed in good, sensible time, without fuss, and watched a documentary on third world debt while the children slept.

When the documentary finished she went upstairs to check on the children (of course she did, it was the sensible thing to do). They were both soundly asleep, safe in the knowledge that Janet was there to watch over them – no bogeyman dared share his face when Janet was around.

With the children asleep, she went into the study to do work on an essay on flood defences in the twenty-first century. The essay wasn’t due for another week or so, but Janet liked to keep ahead with her coursework. She was very sensible like that.

Janet worked for well over an hour on her essay, without pausing for a tea break, toilet break, cheese break or rice pudding break. She didn’t even stop to walk around the house with a badger on her head, she was very sensible like that was Janet.

When the parents arrived home they found Janet pouring over her essay and the children sound asleep in bed. Everything was as it should be, except …

Except that when they looked in the lounge, they found that the room was on fire.

It seems that there was an electric heater in the lounge. It had been left plugged in and pushed up against a comfy chair, so when Janet had put the documentary on she had inadvertently also switched on the heater, which left pressed against soft fabric, had eventually set light to the chair.

Luckily the fire hadn’t spread far and they managed to put it out without fuss.  There was nothing to worry about, it was all covered by insurance, no harm done.

The parents paid Janet her babysitting fee, insisted on the full amount plus tip. It wasn’t Janet’s fault everyone agreed, it was their fault for leaving the heater plugged in such a dangerous circumstance.

Janet was entirely free from blame. After all, Janet was THE most sensible of people.

Which is what everyone said. Everyone agreed.

Except, if you asked a certain man with a badger on his head, he might confess that he never really trusted sensible people. After all, a silly person would have completely failed to get the children to bed on time, would never have watched a documentary on third world debt, and would certainly have not sat writing an essay that wasn’t due for another week.

There’s a lot to be said for silly people.