Sgt. Salty and the Misfits - Chapter 2: Operation Babysitting Blitz

Right, settle down, you maggots. Salty back on the mic.

After that first tour of duty observing Sharon's domestic hellscape—codenamed Six-Pack of Doom—I realized two things. One, Sharon is drinking a volume of lukewarm, sugary tea that could float a small frigate. Two, the Misfits need hands-on experience in dealing with high-level, persistent threat scenarios. And there is no greater threat than a six-year-old with a glitter shaker and a grudge.

So, for her monthly ‘sanity break’ (which involves two hours sitting in a car park and weeping silently), I deployed Squid.

Squid, as you know, is technically brilliant but possesses the emotional resilience of a damp digestive biscuit. He has high-functioning anxiety and views anything that doesn't follow a predictable algorithm as an existential threat. Perfect for babysitting. I told him it was a simple surveillance operation requiring only basic containment and data logging. I watched him approach the house, clutching a backpack full of contingency plans and a can of industrial disinfectant, like a lamb walking into a butcher's convention.

The Glitter-Based Interrogation

The first hour was silence. The silence of a predator stalking its prey. Squid was sitting rigidly on the sofa, trying to debug a flaw in the Misfits’ comms unit, completely ignoring the six sets of eyes studying him like an alien specimen.

The triplets—Marie, Kate, and Ashley—struck first. Their strategy was classic psychological warfare. They surrounded him, all three wearing matching, sickly-sweet pink tutus, and began asking questions that made no logical sense.

“Squid, why do your eyebrows look like sad slugs?” “Is the moon actually made of cheese, or is that a conspiracy theory?” “If time goes backwards, do farts go back inside you?”

Squid tried to use logic. “The moon is a satellite comprised mainly of silicates, and time is a dimension measured by spacetime geometry.”

This, naturally, was fuel. Ashley (I swear it was Ashley) pulled out a massive jar of iridescent glitter and, with the precision of a trained sniper, dumped it directly onto the air intake of Squid’s custom-built mini-drone.

“Now,” Marie chirped, “does your sparkly satellite measure spacetime geometry?”

Squid’s internal systems overloaded. He started trembling, not because of the glitter (though that stuff is permanent—it’s the cockroach of craft supplies), but because the girls had introduced an unquantifiable variable into his neat, ordered universe. They had won the psychological round in under fifteen minutes.

The Siege of the Scooter

While Squid was dealing with the girls trying to braid his remaining three hairs, the boys—Tom, Dick, and Harry—had moved on to their primary objective: destruction of transport.

Squid had parked his treasured, meticulously maintained 1998 Toyota Starlet—which he lovingly referred to as The Algorithm—on the front lawn, thinking it was safer there than on the street.

Dick, the architect of destruction, noticed a small spanner lying by the shed. Tom, always looking for a mess, noticed a half-finished bottle of milkshake. Harry, the quiet theorist, noticed the exposed wiring loom underneath the bonnet.

It was a beautiful, terrifying collaboration.

First, Dick and Harry popped the bonnet. Then, Harry—with that terrifying, quiet focus—started snipping away at the essential engine wiring, explaining to Dick, “This is the central nervous system, Dick. If we sever the data flow, the fuel pump can’t achieve optimum pressure.” Dick, not understanding a word, replied by shoving a small, sticky toy car deep into the radiator grille.

But Tom, oh, that stinking little menace Tom, delivered the killing blow. He took the milkshake and, seeing the open oil filler cap, poured the entire contents—sticky, sugary, strawberry sludge—directly into the engine block.

When Salty finally got the frantic, static-ridden call from Squid—something about “non-Euclidean geometry and motor oil”—I arrived to find the house looking like a bouncy castle had exploded inside a skip.

Squid was curled up in the fetal position under the kitchen table, covered in pink glitter, gently muttering prime numbers to himself.

The Unjustified Procurement

I found the car on the lawn. It didn't just look broken; it looked violated. The interior was coated in something that looked like peanut butter mixed with grass. The tires were flat, not punctured, but actively deflated, as if the air had simply decided it wanted no part of the ongoing trauma. And the engine… the engine smelled like a dairy farm exploded.

I stared at the milkshake-sludge pouring out of the dipstick hole.

“Squid,” I said, stepping over Dick, who was enthusiastically trying to pry the doorbell off the wall with a spoon. “Did they… disable your transportation using a basic dairy product?”

Squid’s voice was a whisper. “It was highly viscous, Sarge. And the sucrose content will cause crystalline deposits to form under extreme heat. It’s... terminal, Sarge.”

I looked at Sharon's house, a monument to chaos, then at my trembling Misfit, and then at the six tiny, giggling agents of destruction. We weren't dealing with a family. We were dealing with an enemy compound that required specialized military logistics.

“Right. This is beyond our standard operational budget,” I growled, pulling out my comms. “The Misfits are not equipped to handle a mobile command unit that requires this level of sustained, close-quarters combat.”

I pointed at the wreck of Squid’s Starlet. “That was a civilian vehicle. This lot needs armour plating and a turret.”

I turned to Sharon, who had just returned, radiating exhaustion. “You know what? You're getting a courtesy vehicle.”

I got on the line with HQ.

“Salty to Procurement. Cancel the order for the new surveillance van. Change of plan. I need a vehicle with at least 50mm composite ceramic armour, a sealed filtration system, and enough internal space to contain a tactical glitter explosion. Specifically, I need a six-seater, low-mileage, decommissioned, non-EU spec Armoured Personnel Carrier. Yeah, an APC. What’s the model? Who cares, as long as it smells slightly of diesel and not strawberry yogurt. Put it on the Misfits’ account. This is a justifiable, necessary expense for counter-domestic terrorism.”

And that, lads, is how a family of six got a shiny new APC for the school run. It’s the only vehicle in the world rated to survive Tom's hygiene and Harry's structural analysis.

Salty out. I’m going for a pint. A cold one.