Baby sitting is never easy. Especially when its your six year old little cousin and you've seen a horror movie about a babysitter the night before.

It was dark enough outside that I could no longer see the neighbors house through the back door. I remember it was windy because the tree out front was tapping on the window, creating a horrible noise. We were watching TV, some little kid show with a dog and his pals. That was when the phone calls started.
The first time I picked up, presuming it was my older cousin calling to check on her kid. But the caller I.D said blocked number. I answered anyway, thinking it was some telemarketer. I said "Hello?" into the receiver and smiled at my cousin.
The line was blank, so I hung up. I thought it was just another one of those calls, like the debt collector calls I'd get on my cell. I was terribly, terribly wrong.
At first, it was coincidence. An Oh Ha-ha Wrong Number type thing. But the phone kept ringing and I kept answering.
Same result every time.
Then my cell phone started receiving blank text messages from a blocked number.
This is where I panicked.
I closed all the curtains, shut all the doors and windows and shuffled myself and my cousin up the stairs to the safety of my parents bedroom. My cousin asked why I was being so weird, I just looked at him and smiled. You do not, under any circumstances, worry a six year old. I told him to sit in the recliner and watch his cartoons. He did.

I peeked out the window, watching the car that went up the street and then back down. It drove particularly slowly in front of our driveway, seeming to look directly at me. I freaked. I rushed to the phone on the bedside table and dialed the first number I could think of.
No, not my mother or the police, I called my friend. He told me to hang tight and that he would call the police and then come over. He thought that if he parked his own car in the drive way that it would scare off this perpetrator.
I looked out the window once again and saw that the car had stopped in front of my house.
This was when I realized both the garage and back doors where unlocked.
What should I do, where should I hide? How am I suppose to keep my cousin safe when this potentially harmful person is lurking in my drive way? I grabbed him my the shoulder and told him "Sweetie, I need you to hide for me. There is someone outside that doesn't belong there and I don't want you to see him. I don't know if he has a weapon, but I don't want you getting hurt OK?" He looked at me like I was crazy.
He nodded and then preceded to hide in the linen closet underneath a pile of blankets.

Where is he? I thought to myself. It had been almost fifteen minutes and my friend hadn't shown up yet. The car was still there. I had no way of protecting myself or my cousin. There was always the gun in my fathers closet, but I didn't know how to use it.

I heard a car door shut.

I tiptoed to the window, praying to God that it wasn't the person in the strange car.
Downstairs, I heard the screen door screech open and then the front door open and bang against the wall. I grabbed the first thing I could find to protect myself, and hoped the burglar wasn't wearing goggles. I grabbed a can of super hold hairspray.

The bedroom door flung open and I screamed at the top of my lungs.

It was my friend. Thank God!
I ran into his arms and immediately began sobbing into his shoulder. I sat down on the ground and he approached the window. I watched him raise a small handgun out of his shorts pocket, pointing directly at the vehicle that had circled the block when he pulled up.

"What are you doing?" I whispered, thinking that the person might hear.
"What guys do, shoot things." His faced glowed blue and red, then melted into a smile. "Cops."

What happened after this event was not pretty, it involved thousands of dollars worth of home security and therapy. I can remember every detail, down to the silly phrases the characters on my cousins cartoon said. I haven't baby sat since then.

But I once got a piece of paper in the mail that said:
You've been warned.