Thanks for your comment, and I'm sorry you were left in such an unsafe situation and have to cope with the emotional aftermath.

Somehow reading your comment helps me put my stuff in perspective. I was focusing so much on the changed clothes part of things that maybe I glossed over the alcoholism in my own mind. The thing is, the babysitter's husband was a drunk, but I remember the babysitter herself drinking as well. Like you were alluding to in your case, who's to say that she wasn't driving me and the other kid around tipsy or drunk? Just because she probably drank far less than her husband doesn't make her the appropriate person to watch over small kids. And who knows how many times she had to step out quickly to get butter or eggs from the store and let her husband "watch" me in the meantime.

It's hard for me to wrap my head around why our adults were so careless with us when we were kids. We deserved better.