In reality, my first job was quite a learning experience as well. The summer I was 14, I was babysitting twice a week for the Johnsons, the wealthiest family in my neighborhood. They had a 4-year old, blond-haired angel – Jenny May, whom I read and played Bingo with.

My second day on the job, I am in the middle of baking cookies when the front door slams open. Mr. Johnson’s 6 foot, 6 inch frame fills the door frame; clutching onto his arm is a petite red-head, stumbling in her stilettos. It certainly wasn’t his wife – this woman was a third her size. She is panting, sweat staining her silk shirt. She looked like she happened to suffer a seizure while walking by the Johnson’s house. I reach for the phone to dial 9-1-1, but Mr. Johnson beats me to it. “I’m just going to take care of her upstairs. She’s needs something to drink, that’s all,” he assures me. He bends down to scoop up his companion and airlifts her upstairs to his room.

Little Jenny walks in from the TV room, “Is someone home?” I tell her no, that was just the Cookie Fairy – he came to add more chocolate chips to your cookies! She beams and runs back to watch her program.

I slowly make my way upstairs with a tray of water and ice cubes to check on Mr. Johnson. The door to the Johnson’ master bedroom is wide open, and I see two stark-naked figures tangled in bed. The tiny red-head is moaning like a savage, drowning under Mr. Johnson’s line-backer frame. Bedsheets and clothes are strewn everywhere. I take a deep breath and spin around, promptly landing on my rear – ice cubes, water, and cups flying everywhere.

Little Jenny did get extra chocolate chips in her cookies that night. Her father, after sending his mistress off, did devour half of them, but I couldn’t care less. No words were exchanged when Mr. Johnson drove me home that night. But when he stuffed two hundred dollar bills in my hand, he gave me a look as if to say, “We have an understanding don’t we?”

So I, every Thursday and Friday after Chinese class, for an entire summer, would rush to the Johnson’s palace, sing and dance and bake cookies for Jenny while Mr. Johnson and his mistress drank, moaned, and thumped loudly upstairs for several hours.

My parents were stunned at how much cash I’d accumulated at the end of the summer. Mr. J sometimes paid me with rolls of $100 bills. That summer, I learned how to bake 14 different kinds of chocolate chip cookies. And that was also summer that I – a late bloomer – really learned how babies were made. 14 different ways.