Anytime we mention that we have an Au Pair to someone, we have to spend the next 10 minutes explaining what an Au Pair is (“a person” doesn’t offer adequate definition, apparently – I’ve tried).  Alternatively, people give you weird looks because they’ve “heard stories about Au Pairs”, and apparently they’re talking to different people than us because most of the stories I hear are no where near as interesting as theirs.  I think the one my Dad mentioned involved a guy going nuts and killing his wife to be with his Au Pair.  Don’t worry, neither Malin nor Laura would ever have had me, so we’re safe there.

On the other hand, I was recently trying to send a link to the video that our next Au Pair, Anamaria, had made for CultureCare Au Pair’s website.  The website is http://aupairvideos.com, and all they have are videos that Au Pairs have made, telling you about themselves and explaining why they want to travel to the US and watch children.  I tried to send this link from work, whereupon I got an “ACCESS DENIED” screen on my computer, and warnings that my computer usage was being monitored and repeated attempt to access pornographic sites like aupairvideos.com would lead to disciplinary action.  Obviously I haven’t browsed through enough of the videos, because the only ones I’ve seen have been about kids and family, but apparently I live a sheltered life.

We have heard of Au Pairs who have had indiscretions with the host father, which usually ends badly and is generally considered an awkward living situation.  We’ve also heard of Au Pairs caught in the middle of disintegrating marriages (“if she asks me if you were home last night, I’m not going to lie”).  And while we did our damdest (and by we, I mean “I”) to say the most inappropriate things to Laura, we haven’t really generated much in the way of shocking foibles.  I guess that means we’re boring.

Well, one thing that’s been different this year is that Malin has friends over ALL THE TIME.  In fact, there were four Swede’s sleeping here last Saturday night, and 3 tonight.  This has significantly increased the likelihood of awkward moments, but has provided the amusing sideshow of watching three near-teenage girls trying to get ready to go out on the town for the night, and oh dear god it’s scary.

So right, teenage girls wandering about the home.  Something was inevitably going to go wrong.  Normally the girls stay in Malin’s room.  When her mother and sister visted, they slept in the spare room, but that was very obvious and known to all. so no problems there.  The problem is that occasionally Malin mixes things up on me, presumably to just to get me arrested.  Actually, they’re all over 18, so not arrested, but at least make people look at me with a knowing, disapproving expression.

The first occurence was Angelica’s fault.  Angelica is one of my favorite Au Pairs.  She’s very sweet, and pretty (especially in Laura’s sense of the word), and seems to be almost constantly living in a state of damsel-in-distress.  Mostly this means that she’s funny and adorable, and she loves to play with our boys, and the stories Malin tells us make us shake our heads in exasperation.  Like I said, one of my favorites.

So when she spent the night one night, I thought nothing of it.  I *assumed* she was in Malin’s room.  She always was every other time she’d stayed here.  That day also happened to be Mothers day.  I’d bought Katie a book for Mother’s day, by one of her favorite authors.  This led to a discussion where we were trying to remember the name of a character in the prequel.  That book was up in our spare bedroom.  You know, the empty room, next to Malins, where we have a spare bed set up that is almost never used, and where we store all of our books.  So I head upstairs, walk into the room, and grab the book.  I think to myself, “if I go downstairs, Katie will see me holding the book and reassign me to some chore with the boys, so I’ll just take 10 seconds and find the name of the bloody character.”  So I sit down on the foot of the bed and search quickly through the book.

The bed moves.

I’m completely startled, and jump up, and see Angelica’s head emerge from under the covers.  Oh God.  Now I’m THAT host dad.  Seriously, you couldn’t see her when you entered the room – she was completely under covers.  And the comforter is navy blue, and the room was dark, and SHE WASN’T SUPPOSED TO BE THERE, but THEN SHE WAS, and now I’m THAT GUY.  I jump up and run out of the room, and run to tell Katie so that she doesn’t think I’m trying to molest the teenage girls sleeping at our house and start divorce proceedings and demand full custody of the boys and I end up living alone in studio apartment playing video games all night and bemoaning the child support check, which is to say in case Malin tells her the story first.

Another time, I know that a girl is staying in that room, though I don’t know if she’s in the room at the moment, and it’s the middle of the afternoon, but I need something out of the room so you gotta do what you gotta do.  I go up to the room, and knock on the door several times, with no response.  I tentatively open the door, to find her standing there in her (thankfully very LONG) T-shirt.  So now I’m turning beet red, and thinking “how can the same thing happen to the same guy twice?” and stammering, “sorry, I was just looking for the – oh, nevermind.  Sorry!”  She says, “it’s okay, you can come in.”  And I say, “no, no, I really, REALLY can’t.”  And then I run away.  I think Katie found me a few hours later, hiding behind the shop vac, under the pool table, out in the garage.  Swedish girls obviously hate redheads.  Redheads and Finns and geeks, as near as I can tell.

A couple of months later, and Angelica is spending the night again, along with Catrin.  I vow to not, under any circumstances, even TOUCH door to the den.  I have no idea if she’s sleeping in there or not, but I don’t care if I have anaphylactic shock and the epi-pen is stored in that room, because I’m NOT going near it.  And as I walk by room the next morning I see this note on the door:

Thank god, finally someone’s trying to protect MY dignity.  Didn’t I tell you Angelica was sweet?