The Nanny and the Hare - A Story of First Impressions

When my second one was born, we knew we would need help with the baby. We were both 10 years older than we were the first time around. So we interviewed and hired this lady to take care of Maalini. The idea was for her to take care of M from about 8AM to 7PM and live with us during the week and go back home during weekends. We wanted a live in nanny since we did not want her, and by proxy us, to be at the mercy of Maryland area traffic.

On the second night after she came, I was in my drawing room watching late night TV and I felt something move near the periphery of my vision. Typically when the heat turns on and air blows it causes the blinds to move. So I ignored it, but I could not get over the feeling that someone was watching me. Five minutes of concentrated Law & Order watching later, I saw the shadow again move behind the TV. This time I was ready and investigated and found that it was a hare.

Those of you that know the difference between the two, rabbit and hare, please do not enlighten me. The title of this post sounds nice only if it were a hare.

Back to my drawing room, the hare had taken shelter under my immense TV. This is one of the first generation rear projection HD TV, weighing almost 300lbs. Although it had wheels, and the floor had Berber carpet, it was hard to move. After trying futilely for 5 minutes to escort it outside through the door leading to the deck, I made the biggest mistake.

I woke my wife up!!

Jannavi normally is a very intrepid person where humans are concerned, but the moment she is confronted by non-biped creatures, she loses her cool. There is no moderation to her fear. It does not matter whether it is a small bug, an earthworm, a cat, a dog, a friendly calf or a fearful lion. She will throw a fit. The rest of us, my daughters and I love dogs, but there is absolutely no chance we will have a pet!! It is me or a pet, is her slogan.

When she came down, I was bombarded by a series of questions. What are we going to do? How will we get rid of it? What if it goes upstairs? What if it has invited its family? How does it affect the resale value of the house? How does this affect the economy? I am kidding, she did not ask the last one.

You would think from her questions that it was an invasion of our house by a machete wielding monster thirsting for our blood, rather than an accidental ingress of a hare.

I barricaded the family room using the futon and its mattress in such a manner that it could not leave that room and left the door to the deck open. No matter what we did the hare did not take the bait. We tried for a while and finally gave up and went to sleep. I mean I went to sleep and Jannavi worried about the hare in our drawing room till dawn.

Morning came and we described the events to our nanny. We then asked her where she was when all this was happening? You know what she said?

She had come down and had seen that my wife was crying. The house was in total disarray with furniture strewn all over the ground floor.

So she assumed that after drinking like a fish I had been beating my wife.

I know that I do not necessarily make the best first impression on people, or for that matter second impression. But this takes the cake. You try to get a hare to leave the house and people think you are a drunkard and a wife beater!!

After what she said, everything else was an anti-climax. Our nanny coaxed the hare to leave its hiding place and leave. It just was as scared as my wife and wanted to leave our house as much as we wanted it gone.