After having a nanny for a short while, Zevin and his wife conducted a search for another nanny to work part-time (something they ultimately decided against). Zevin says that many of their friends were certain they themselves had the perfect nanny. One mother named Paige enthusiastically recommended a nanny named Anling and finished her list of Anling's good points with "It's not important to you that she gets English, right?" "I paused," Zevin wrote. "'Well, maybe not perfectly, but-' 'Good, because Angling doesn't get English. We loved that about her.' I guess I could have asked what, specifically, it was they loved about Anling's not getting English, but it just seemed like too much to tackle at that point... I tried to be tactful. 'But what if there was ever an emergency situation? How would she be able to explain what was wrong?' 'Oh, you new dads!' said Paige, laughing at me. 'With Anling, there won't ever be an emergency situation!' I would like to note at this point that any New Yorker who can state unequivocally that 'there won't ever be an emergency situation' has crossed a line from cockeyed optimism to blind denial."
