“I love my family, or at the very least people would assume so. People would think that growing up as a politician’s son would be easy, and they are right. I got everything that I ever asked for, spending money the only way Rick People could spend money.
“Dad! I want a Pony” Boom, Pony is at my feet
“Dad! I wanted it black” Boom. Done. Pony now looks like it crawled out of the Black Lagoon.
“Dad! The Pony glared at me!” I get a bottle of glue the next day. I was living the Rickie Rich lifestyle. I can have anything I want.
But the best part of growing up rich, the absolute best part, was that we were able to afford our own nanny.
I love her so much but am goddamn terrified of her to this day. I am a 28 year old man and I live in my own bodyweight of fear towards her.
When I was 1 to when I was 11, we had a nanny in our house. Her name is Nanny. If you call her anything else you will die. Somedays I think that my parents made a Rumpelstiltskin Deal with her before I was born, where instead of taking baby me she just moved in to our house to raid our fridge and judge the world from lofty windows. This is just the first part of the mystery of my nanny.
She dresses like she is preparing to go to a funeral. And the difference between preparing to go and actually going is that they hadn’t found the body yet. You know when friends say that they would kill someone for you? Nanny would gut a cat if I wanted to play the violin that’s how hardcore she was. She wore red sunglasses because her glare alone could turn anyone to stone. If you squint hard enough you can actually see lasers coming out of her eyes.
Now you need to remember, I lived with this woman for Ten Years. Since I was a baby. This shit was normalized to me. While my parents were in West Wing I was living in the Addams Family. Nanny loved me and raised me and so what if she told me that I was going to lead Satan’s Army someday. That’s just Nanny. But throughout all of this, I never truly understand how terrifying she could be until I was 8 years old.
Picture this: a little 8 year old me, plump and trimmed with baby fat, standing next to Mary Poppin’s evil twin. One day we were going out for brunch so I can, and I’m quoting here “practice giving out orders when the army of hell arrives”
I’m still waiting for them, just to let you know.
So we get inside Nanny’s car, an old Black 1933 Bently which plays nothing but Queen music on cassettes.
I know this sounds fake, but she is a real person and not some Baba Yaga who decided not to eat me.
As we were about to leave, Brother Francis ran out to us. Francis was out gardener. He worked for us for as long as Nanny has, wears suspenders and a sun hat, and I’m pretty sure he ran away from a monastery. He walks up to Nanny and asks for a ride to the local gardening store for supplies. So he gets in the front seat, I’m in the back, and all three of us get on our way.
At 1000 miles per hour in a 55 zone.
Now I’m 8 years old. And no matter how cool your Nanny is, you just don’t pay attention to boring adult stuff like meetings, or finances, or traffic safety laws. So I’m lost in my own thoughts on how to direct my hell army to build myself a waterpark.
I don’t know how long I zoned out because when I snapped back in Nanny and Francis were arguing. Not in the pleasant passive aggressive way that makes you rethink your life choices, but full on yelling. So we are speeding down the road like death is chasing us. Bohemian Rhapsody is playing on blast. Nanny and Francis screaming at each other. Sulfur filled the air, radiant light pulsed menacing around us. Exactly how I imagined what parents fighting would be like. Things came to a head right as Freddy was about to hit his last “For Me!” because that was when this meek looking gardener snapped. Francis turns to Nanny and screams “YOU’RE DRIVING TOO FAST!” yanks the cassette out and pitches it out the window.
And then time stood still.
Have you ever been on a rollercoaster where at the top of the first hill staring down you regret every decision you’ve ever made that led you to this point? That was where we were all at.
Because there were three rules to Nanny’s Bently. Nanny always drives. Nanny always drives fast. And Nanny always drives fast with Freddy Mercury blaring down like her own personal angel.
This is all new uncharted territory for me. I’ve never seen anyone even dare disrespect her angel and plan to live to tell the tale. I was just watching in fascinated horror as this moment just searing into my mind.
Nanny’s looking directly at Francis, you can feel her eye’s heat laser’s charging up. I was trying to think of reasons to tell my parents why we don’t have a gardener anymore. Because even at 8 years old I know a death marker when I’ve seen one and by the end of the trip I was expecting Francis to be nothing but a smoldering piled of ash and a $15 hat.
She looks at him, and takes one hand off the wheel. Still barreling down the road like a madman mind you. But it alright because time’s frozen so we don’t hit anything. And with one hand, she reaches in front of him to the glove compartment, gently pulls out another cassette tape, and places it in the deck.
We pull into the parking lot by the time Bohemian Rhapsody ends and I have never looked at Nanny the same way ever again. Because anyone who can play the exact same song on two different cassettes without missing a beat is their own god and needs to be feared.”
-Warlock in his comedy special
