Hiring a Nanny: Myth v. Fact - MetroFamily Magazine

The Nanny's Revenge

After a month-long fast, a disgruntled nanny assumes a new identity

Sarah became a nanny by accident. She was kicking her heels, eating peanut butter from the jar and getting rejected for jobs she didn’t want, when her Mum’s best friend got a big promotion, with lots of business travel, so needed live-in help with her twins, and Sarah’s Mum suggested her. Sarah wasn’t keen; she had no experience and didn’t like children. As it turned out, this made her ideal for the role.

The twins were a handful, but Sarah’s sharp wit meant that soon, much to their mother’s astonishment, they were tidying their rooms and doing their homework. Apparently being teased mercilessly and fed cookies worked better than so-called ‘boundaries.’ It helped that Sarah didn’t care whether the twins liked her and appeared curious, rather than stressed, when they misbehaved. She carried a notebook and wrote down all their transgressions. The twins thought she was keeping tabs on them. They were wrong.

The twin’s Mum told everyone how her nanny had transformed her two horrors, which worked against her, as Sarah soon got headhunted. Untroubled by loyalty or guilt, she jumped ship and was a roaring success with the second batch of vile offspring. She was on her way. Three job changes later, she landed a cushy number in Kensington, with her own nanny annexe, an outrageous salary and just one spoilt sprog. Sarah soon had Tarquin under control, but to no avail. Two weeks later, Caspian fired her.

Caspian’s wife Ottilie had appointed Sarah while hubby was on a business trip to Tokyo. When he returned, the couple had a row. Sarah heard Caspian shouting and Ottalie sobbing but thought no more of it until the next morning, when Caspian dismissed her. Apparently she didn’t fit the ‘family image.’ When Sarah asked him to explain, Caspian didn’t mince his words.

‘Isn’t it obvious? You must be…what? A size 14?’

Sarah departed, taking her notebooks but leaving her cookies. She researched online and discovered that a body could survive up to two months without food, provided it had sufficient water. Sarah figured half that time should do it. She stocked up on Evian, opened the first notebook, fired up her laptop and followed her dream.

She wasn’t an overnight success. The comedy circuit is a tough nut to crack, but she endured the endless excruciating open mic nights and raucous pub gigs, confident her big break would come. After all, she had starved herself down to a size 8. She could do anything. She had also changed her name, replaced her bob with a buzz cut and got a tattoo on her neck. No-one would hire her as a nanny now. There was no going back.

Two years later, Ziggy made her TV debut and went down a storm. The final sketch about a hideous couple called Caspian and Ottalie was particularly successful. The audience roared with laughter as Ziggy revealed that unlikely as it might seem, those were their actual names.

Caspian and Ottilie’s ‘family image’ never recovered.




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