CLAUDETTE TILDER BABYSITTER INC.
★★★★★ (3 out of 5)
Hello, and welcome to my week-by-week review of everything in the world. Today I am reviewing Claudette Tilder Babysitter Inc.
One of the most exciting and innovative start-ups isn’t located in Silicon Valley. In fact, I’m not even sure where it’s located because the founder, Claudette Tilder, refused to tell me where she’s located. But where she is doesn’t matter, and that’s the whole point.
Claudette Tilder Babysitter Inc. is being heralded by Claudette as the next big thing in babysitting. Rather than the traditional model of a person who comes to your home, Claudette does the babysitting from her house over the internet via a web camera.
I decided to try the service out myself. Since I have no children of my own, I made one out of papier-mâché. And since I don’t know how to get the web camera in my house to work, I used the one at the library. I left my papier-mâché child (Nick) in a chair at the library in front of the camera and let Claudette work her magic while I went off to the movies.
When I returned a few hours later, Nick was gone and someone else was at the computer. Claudette was nowhere to be seen. One of the librarians had taken Nick and leaned him against the wall in the corner. If Nick had been a real child he could have been kidnapped.
I emailed Claudete the next day to see what had happened. Because I had to pay up front, I was very disappointed with the service she provided. She didn’t get back to me for several weeks, and when she did she said her webcam went down and she was really sick too. None of that was her fault, it was just unfortunate timing.
It felt great being able to leave Nick alone while I went off and did whatever I wanted. I could see the appeal of Claudette’s service, although I’m not sure of the benefit to having someone there in person, although I will say that I am very excited by any advances in technology. Claudette is breaking new ground here.
Claudette doesn’t plan to stop at babysitting. As she explains, “Oh I got a lot of inventions I want to make since I’m an inventor now. Can you believe that? I’m an inventor and I didn’t even go to science school! I want to make this like tobacco drink so that way I can get my fix without know-it-alls yelling at me about getting cancer like I’m making them inhale my smoke. It’s basically like I empty my cigarettes into my Folgers. This guy I know, he has a connection and can get me cheap cigarettes so once he hooks me up I’ll start making my drink and then I can get it into stores. It’s gonna sell well because you can’t start a fire with just a drink which is how I lost my sister’s kid.”
Please join me next week when I’ll be reviewing hummingbirds.
