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A mini-novel by Danny
NOW AWAY WE GO...
Just before the new school year was scheduled
to begin my wonderfully delightful parents announced that they were going to
ruin my life forever! Ok, so that isn’t exactly what they said but that is sure
how it seemed to me. They had said that we were going to pack up and move from
the always warm, always exciting
In
Aside from the fact that in
What made moving even worst was that next
season I would have been old enough to compete for the teen surfing title.
After I had won the Junior Surfing Championship for the second year in a row
everyone in town was buzzing, saying that I was going to be the youngest person
to ever capture the teen title. But then my parents dropped the moving
bombshell and I knew everything would change.
John Rudder Holloway, my father, lost his job
when the factory he worked at moved over the Mexican border last year. Since
then he’s had a string of odd jobs, none lasting more than a week. Well he did
get a job as a door to door salesman that lasted for nearly two weeks before
they fired him for not selling a single magazine subscription. After a while he
just stopped trying to get another job and instead took up watching daytime
talk shows and drinking—a lot!
Before John, Johnny to his friends, lost his
job he used to do stuff with me all the time. He’s the one that taught my how
to surf even before I was out of diapers. Nearly every morning before work and
school he would wake me up early so that we could catch some waves together. We
would hit the water just as the sun was coming over the horizon and by the time
we had paddled out we would have just enough light to see as we surfed back in.
That ended the day he hocked our boards and gear so that he could get drunk
again.
That happened to also be the day that I
stopped calling him dad and started calling him John. Well that’s what I called
him to his face; you don’t want to know what I called him when I was around my
friends and such. Although John didn’t like it, I told him that as far as I was
concerned I didn’t have a dad anymore.
In time I, for the most part, got over being
mad at him but I never did go back to calling him dad; it just didn’t seem
right anymore.
When John lost his job and hocked our surfing
gear mom started waiting tables at two different dinners to pay the bills and
to keep from getting kicked out of our home. With her working two jobs the only
time I ever get to see her is when I wake up in the middle of the night and
hear her fighting with John. Usually after their late night verbal war she
would come into my room to tuck me back in. It’s kind of sad to say but I got
to the point that I would look forward to their fights just so I could see her
for a few minutes before she went off to bed alone.
You’d like my mom, her name is Melody and she
has silvery blonde shoulder length hair, pale blue-gray eyes and I know its cliché
but it’s true that her smile could brighten even the darkest day. No matter how
bad things get, no matter how tired she is from working two full time jobs, she
always manages to look her best.
I wish I could say that I am just like my mom
but to be honest, the only trait I got from her is her long thick eyelashes;
aside from that I take after John 100%. I have his jet black hair, extra dark
brown eyes (Jenny says my eyes look evil),
olive colored skin that tans to a nice golden brown (Jenny hates my skin because I can spend all day in the sun and end up
with a deep tan where she would look more like over cooked bacon.) and
enormous feet. I even have the same dimple in my chin like him; mom says it was
John’s dimple that made her fall in love with him.
One trait that I inherited from my father,
who I have since learned inherited it from his father and even all the way back
to my great grandfather, is a trait that I honestly wish I didn’t inherit; that
is a problem with wetting the sheet at night. Aside from my mom, John and my
friend Jenny, no one knows I have that problem; not even my closest friends
know about it.
Up until about a year ago I had nearly
stopped wetting at night. I was only waking up with wet sheets maybe once a
week and even a few times I went over two weeks without wetting. And then for
some reason, right about the same time I turned eleven I started wetting
several time a night, every night.
You’d be surprised at some of the harebrained
methods I have read about on the Internet at the library for stopping night
wetting. But there comes a time in every sheet-wetter’s life when they are so
desperate to stop that they will try anything—I’m no different. I’ve tried
everything to stop including setting an alarm clock to wake me up every hour to
go pee, not drinking anything after eating supper, not drinking stuff with
caffeine in it, putting a bunch of books under the bottom legs of my bed and
even wrapping a Band-Aid tightly around my penis. At first some of the
techniques worked but usually only for a day or two but in the end nothing
could help me to stop wetting my sheets.
__________
The day that I was told we were moving to
“Sweetheart,” mom started and I knew I wasn’t
going to like what came next.
They proceeded to tell me we were moving and
no matter how much a screamed and complained it did absolutely no good
what-so-ever. Finally, in a fury I pounded my fist on my desk and screamed,
“You know what? This both bites and wipes at the same time!”
I then ran out of my room, down the hallway
and out the front door before either of them could stop me. I didn’t stop
running until I reached the beach which by foot took about forty-five minutes
but I didn’t even notice or get tired because I was too mad. I probably would
have continued running right into the Pacific Ocean and swum to
“Whoa, whoa, whoa!”
My feet flew in the air as I cried out, “Let
me go! Let me go!”
“Please let me go
He wrapped both arms around me and wrestled
me to the sand.
I pleaded once more before giving up, “Let me
go, please!”
“That’s better!” he said relaxing his grip a
little. “What’s got my littlest, bestest bud so upset?”
At first I didn’t answer and he didn’t push
me for an explanation. He let me cry for a long time; just the two of us
sitting there on the warm sand; me balling like an overgrown baby and him
holding me while strangers walked past trying to act like they weren’t looking.
Some muscle bound guy I sort of remember seeing around the beach came up to
rent a surf board. Without moving
When the guy left I finally spoke but it came
out soft, almost like I was scared to say the words, “We’re moving away.”
At first he didn’t respond.
“Did you hear me?” I asked.
“Yeah... was just a little shocked.” He
answered.
I sniffled hard. “Tell me about it!” I shot
back and started to cry again. “
“
After a moment or so
With my face hidden behind my knees and my
arms wrapped around to hide my tears I nodded.
“Why in the hell would your old man drag your
sorry ass all the way up there?”
That was something else that
When he asked me about
“Them your mom’s folks?” he asked while
fumbling with the gold chain around his neck.
I nodded again without looking up and added,
“They own a big lobster, crab and shrimp restaurant in...” I couldn’t bring
myself to say the name of the city.
“When?” he asked sounding choked up.
“Friday,” I said huffing and puffing.
“But I don’t have my trunks?” I said.
“And since when has that stopped you before?”
He said in a ‘so what’ sort of way.
That was all the incentive I needed; I stood
up and stripped bare right there on the spot. Leaving my clothes in a pile I
picked up the board and the two of us raced into the water.
The water was cold but it felt so good and
once we’d swam out a ways I couldn’t hear the people or the sounds of the city
anymore. With
That day it was just him and me out there
alone, not a ship, boat or person was in site. Heck, we’d paddled so far out
that we couldn’t see the land anymore. There weren’t many waves coming around
the horn but that didn’t matter. We stayed out there talking some of the time
and just floating most of the time and allowed the currents to take us back in;
as land came back into site a good size wave picked up and we road it all the
way in.
We’d been out a good two hours, long enough
for my mom to have called the cops because she thought I had run away. Now I’m
rather well known by those that patrol the southern
Anyway, we came back into shore about a mile
north of where we’d entered. Normally we would just paddle our way back down
the coastline but that day, the last day we’d get to surf together, we decided
to walk along
We were maybe five minutes from The Shack
when Naval Patrol Officer Alex Ricer peddled his bike up behind us. Out of all
those that patrol this stretch of beach, Ricer is the least liked. Ricer is
about the goofiest blowhard you’d ever have the displeasure to run across.
Probably the one thing that stands out about Ricer out of all of his oddities
is the fact that he wears bright white ankle socks with brown leather, buckle
on sandals. I once heard
To make a long story short, Ricer called in a
patrol buggy, which is really just a jeep with big gnarly tires; and I was
hauled back home without being able to retrieve my clothes. I got a postcard
about a week later from
I had been dropped on my doorstep wearing a
big blue towel and smelling like sea water. John had answered the door because
mom was out driving around looking for me. I didn’t bother to stick around, I
took off the towel, handed it to the cop and I walked past John without saying
a single word. Of course John was drunk, again, or maybe I should say still...
anyway before disappearing down the hallway I turned to the officer that
brought me in and said, “Thanks for the ride!” I’m guessing that she was new to
the force because I had never seen her before. I then locked myself in the
bathroom so that I could wash the salt water off. I knew when mom came home
because, even with my head under the bath water, I could hear her angrily
pounding on the bathroom door.
__________
Despite my rock solid, etched in stone,
buried under ten-thousand tons of concrete, unmovable, unyielding resolution
that I wasn’t going to
I’d had time that week to say goodbye to all
of my friends and even got a chance to get back at Ricer by letting the air out
of his patrol bikes tires not once but twice in the same afternoon. I figured
that even if he found out it was me, he wouldn’t be able to do anything before
we left.
I also made it a point to stop by Jenny’s
house, something she had always forbid me from doing; I still don’t why that
is. I expected her to knock my head off the second she saw me but she surprised
me and threw herself at me in a back breaking hug. When I told her we were
moving she started to cry but not for very long. We then spent that entire day
together and as I was saying my final goodbye to her she leaned down and kissed
me on the cheek.
The only one that I didn’t get to say an official
goodbye to was
Jokingly he said, “You trying to run off
without saying so-long to your bestest bud?”
“
He climbed down from his jeep and took a surf
board down off the top. It was one of the nicest long boards I’d ever seen and
when he said he was giving it to me to remember him by I nearly started to cry.
He said that it was my early twelfth birthday and Christmas present.
On the top of it were the words, Have
Waves Will Surf in sparkling blue and white letters outlined in red
pinstripe. At the back of the board, right across the edge it said, Eat
My Wake! He then showed me the bottom of the board and it had my name
in huge fancy blue and white letter that covered the entire bottom, ALVIN
HOLLOWAY and running through the middle of my name in gold was, 2X Jr
Surfing Champion.
When I saw my name on the bottom
And as he handed it to me he looked John
right in the eye and threatened him by saying, “If I hear that you’ve sold this
one I swear it won’t matter what state or continent you’re on... I’ll find you
and kick your sorry ass so hard you’ll be shitting out your ears and pissing
out your nose!”
John didn’t say anything back, he simply
turned and walked back into the house. Mom came out then and surprised me when
she gave
“You better watch out, I might just take you
up on that!”
After tying my new board onto the top of our
car
My eyes were filled with tears as I said
goodbye to him and a handful of my other friends that had come to see us off. I
was half hoping that Jenny would have come but I wasn’t surprised that she
didn’t. Jenny doesn’t usually do what people expect her to do.
As we drove away my friends stood in the
middle of the street waving until we were out of sight. When I couldn’t see
them anymore I turned around in the backseat, buckled myself in and began to
cry silently.
__________
DAY ONE ON THE ROAD
About thirty minutes on the road and I
started to feel the need to go number two but I didn’t say anything. After
another fifteen minutes had passed, the need had amplified and ten minutes
after that I blurted out, “I got to go!”
“
“I went pee but I didn’t know I needed to go
number two.” I said grumpily back to her.
“You’re going to have to hold it. We’ve got
about twenty minutes or so before we reach a rest stop.” she said.
I sat quietly in the back seat trying not to
think about needing to go but as each minute ticked by the feeling increased
exponentially. Not thinking bout needing to poop wasn’t working for me so then
I tried concentrating on holding it in. I began muttering to myself as I
clenched my butt cheeks tightly together, “Hold it! Hold it! Hold it in.”
When I felt that I could wait another second
I cried out, “I can’t hold it any longer! Please pull over!”
The car was no sooner on the shoulder of the
road then I threw open the door opposite traffic and started to get out fast
but carefully so as not to have an accident in my pants.
“Wait!” Mom called after me.
“Mom I can’t...” I started to complain but
stopped when I saw she was handing me a fist full of napkins. I felt a bit
stupid for not thinking that far ahead.
I ran about fifteen feet so that I could
squat in a ravine for a little privacy.
“Come on, come on!” I groaned while fumbling
to get my belt undone and my pants pulled down.
Since this was my first time ever pooping in
the great outdoors, (not counting the ocean), I wasn’t exactly sure how to go
about not pooping on myself. It seemed to make sense that I should only pull my
pants down to my hips and squatted with my feet as far apart as I could without
falling over. When it came out it felt like it might be a record breaking poop
for me because it felt like a big one. In the bathroom a poop always falls into
the water with a plop but this time there was no plop. In fact there was no
satisfactory sound at all because the dang turd hadn’t hit the grown and in my
mind I could envision what it might have looked like. A big brown snake hanging
out of my butt; just dangling there and not knowing what to do I clamped my
cheeks together. Big mistake! I felt the poop break away but before it did I
felt it smear inside my crack.
“Thank goodness mom gave me plenty of
napkins.” I said aloud.
“
“Mom, don’t come down here!” I shouted out of
the ravine when I realized that she must have followed me.
“Are you almost done?” she asked.
“Almost!” I shouted back.
“Do you need any help?” she asked.
“Moooooom!” I whimpered, “Can a guy have a
little privacy please?”
I waited a moment to be sure she had gone
back to the car before I reached back with one of the napkins and wiped myself.
“Aw man!” I groaned when I felt how messy I
was back there. I dropped the first napkin and when I was bringing my hand back
around for another I saw that I had poop on my hand. “Aw man!” I groaned again
and tried to wipe it off with one of the napkins.
Mom had given me seven napkins but when I had
used the fifth one I knew that seven wasn’t going to be enough. I tried to make
the last two napkins count before resigning to the idea at I was going to have
to put up with a slightly soiled butt crack until we could get to the rest
stop.
I carefully pulled up my underwear and then
my pants. As I was zipping up my fly I looked down at the lump I’d just
deposited and was surprised to see that it wasn’t brown at all but a kind of
bright green. I’d never had green poop before; I’d seen just about every shade
of brown come out of me including light tan, and a brown so dark it looked
black but never did I drop a green dookie. In a warped and disgusting sort of
way it was kind of pretty.
Once I had my belt refastened I climbed out
of the ravine and made my way back to the car. With each step I could feel my
butt cheeks sliding around and knew that I’d not even come close to getting
myself cleaned up.
I was careful to sit down when getting back
into the car. It didn’t feel all squishy so I guess maybe it wasn’t that bad.
As I was closing the door I sniffed the hand
I’d wiped with and nearly retched. “Can we still stop at the rest area ahead?”
I asked while fastening my seatbelt and trying to touch it as little as
possible. I was so glad when mom didn’t ask any questions.
At the rest stop I first washed my hands then
found an empty stall. I pulled my pants back down and, “Aw man!” I groaned when
I saw the heavy brown racing strip I’d left in my underwear. It took six more
wipes before my crack was clean but it wouldn’t stay that way once I pulled my
underwear back up. Not knowing what else to do I decided that I’d just take off
my underwear and leave them there in the stall for some poor unfortunate soul
to find once I had gone.
Feelings of relief and mild pride filled me
for how I’d handled that whole situation. I went back to the car and with that
emergency behind me I returned to sulking as we headed back to the road again.
Though it was such a horrible feeling to be leaving behind everything and
everyone I ever knew, mom and John still managed to make the long drive ...
dare I say it ... enjoyable.
Grandpa Gains had wired mom the money needed
to get us moved and a bit extra so that we could stay the night at a couple
motels along the way. Over the past year mom had become very creative when it
came to stretching a dollar so why should this trip be any different. The first
night we slept in the car at a highway rest stop. For supper we cooked hotdogs
on a tiny round grill.
There was this little Mexican woman traveling
with her short round Mexican husband and he had a mustache nearly as big as he
was. They were driving a pickup truck with plywood sides around the bed and
filled with more watermelons then I had ever seen in one place before. They
pulled into the rest stop while we were eating our hotdogs. The man didn’t
speak any English but the woman did, kind of. They asked if they could use our
tiny grill and to say thank you, they gave us two of their watermelons. I don’t
know what it was they cooked on our grill but I can tell you that whatever it
was, it smelled terrible but boy that watermelon was soooo
juicy and yummy! Those watermelons were so big that we had watermelon almost
every night of our trip.
When it was time to sleep John spread a blue
plastic tarp over the back seat and then covered it with a sheet for me to
sleep on while he and mom cuddled up in the front seat together.
__________
DAY TWO ON THE ROAD
The following morning I washed up using one
of the sinks in the rest stop bathroom while John cooked us some sausages and
toast on the tiny charcoal grill. I never really thought about it before but
cooking toast on the tiny grill was actually kind of cool.
I didn’t know at the time but the reason we
slept at the highway rest stop was so that we’d have enough money to visit the
If I had to choose between the first night
and the second night as to which was better I’d have to say that the second
night was better hands down! John had found a place for us to camp a little
ways off the highway where there was no traffic or people around for miles.
There was even a small pond that all three got to swim in together. Afterward
for the first time in longer than I can remember, John got out his guitar. It
had been so long that I had forgotten that he even had a guitar. I had a short
moment of bitterness well up inside of me when I thought about the fact that
he’d been willing sell our surfing gear but not his guitar. However that
feeling didn’t stick around too long.
While John was strumming out the notes to
Stairway To Heaven we began to hear something. I had
never actually heard the sound of horses galloping so at first I was feeling
maybe a little concerned but then from out of the bushes emerged two horses
with riders. Actually one of the horses wasn’t really a horse, it was a pony.
I’m not sure what the difference is other then size. The horse was tan with a
black mane and tail; and I know that saying tan is a fairly broad statement;
well, it was darker then sand and lighter then dirt? Does that help? The pony
was all black but its main and tail seemed blacker then it’s
body and shinier too.
There was an older teenaged girl riding the
horse. She looked like she might be Mexican with bushy dark hair and I know it
isn’t a nice thing to say but the one thing I noticed about her above all was
her enormous nose. I had never seen a nose that big except in cartoons. She
smiled and steered her horse wide to keep from trotting right through our
campsite.
“Oh sorry, we didn’t know anyone would be
back here.” She said and then called back to the other rider, “Carlos go left.”
Following several paces behind the horse was
the pony and her rider, a boy maybe six years old but I’m not really sure
because of what he was wearing or perhaps I should say because of what he
wasn’t wearing. He didn’t have on a shirt or pants but he wasn’t nude either.
He was wearing a disposable diaper, lime green socks and light brown ankle high
lace up boots.
When the girl had called back for him to
steer clear of us he said back to her in a whiney voice, “I see ‘em! I’m not blind!” He sounded older then he looked.
They both stopped between the pond and us to
talk for a few minutes. The girl told us that if we walked back the way they
had just come, about ten minute or so there were wild berries. The boy added,
“Make your tongue turn purple too.” And then proved it by sticking out his
tongue for us all to see. I got the feeling that the boy wasn’t exactly normal;
like maybe he had some sort of slight mental handicap. However I could be wrong
about that.
After the boy and girl left, mom and John
decided they wanted to go look for those wild berries. They asked me if I
wanted to come along too but I decided that I wasn’t up for a nature hike. My
idea of being one with nature has to do more with water and less with trees and
bushes.
“I’ll stay here and keep the bears away.” I
joked.
I think maybe them wandering off alone turned
out to be a good thing because when they came back they were holding hands and
laughing. I’d not seen them do that in ... well longer then I can remember.
In the later hours of the evening, when the
sun was getting low in the sky, Mom showed me how to make a three pronged spear
and then taught me how to go frog spearing. That night I got to see what frog
legs taste like when cooked over an open fire. Mom said I had them before when
I was real little but I don’t remember that. You know, they are kind of like
chicken wings only without all the spices and barbeque sauce.
You know something else; in all my life I
never knew that my mom used to be a tomboy when she was a little girl. It’s
kind of funny the stuff you can learn about the people that you thought you
knew everything about.
It was such a good clear night that the three
of us slept under the stars in our sleeping bags. At first I wasn’t too happy
with that idea because I didn’t want any snakes or scorpion climbing into my
sleeping bag while I slept but John said to make sure I zipped up my bag all
the way and I wouldn’t have that problem.
__________
DAY THREE ON THE ROAD
The following morning I had a hard time
figuring out if I had wet in my sleeping bag during the night because
everything was wet from the dew that had accumulated over night. Even mom and
John woke up to find that their sleeping bag was wet.
We got a late start that morning because mom
wanted to hang our blankets and pillows up to dry so that we wouldn’t have to
sleep on wet things the following night. It wouldn’t have mattered to me because
I am use to going to sleep with a wet sheets.
While John made breakfast I was sent to go
swimming in the pond again because mom said I smelled like a horse. I think I
said something smart back but I can’t remember now what it was. Boy that water was
the perfect temperature too.
Once we started out again we only went about
a half hour before we stopped to see the Aztec Ruins in
It was there that I met Matt, Willey and
Luke. They were my age and they were triplet brothers but they didn’t look
anything alike. Come to find out they were from
That is when I met their Scout Master; now
his name I can remember for some stranger reason! It was Jerry Walker. Jerry
was a really cool guy and let me use his Scout knife to make myself a stick to
roast a hotdog on. I felt a little sorry for the three scouts that were trying
to get the fire going because the guys were really giving them a hard time
about how long it was taking them. They actually made the fire using a piece of
flint and a knife. I know I couldn’t ever do that so I wasn’t complaining when
it took them a few tries to get it going.
During lunch I told them how we were headed
for
“OH MY GOD! I KNOW WHO YOU ARE!” he shouted,
“YOU ARE ALVIN HOLLOWAY!”
Luke piped up, “Uh yeah, I think he just said
that like twenty minutes ago.”
In
“NO GUYS YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND!” The kid
squealed again, “HE’S A SURFING LEGEND!”
“Well I wouldn’t go so far as to say legend.”
I thought to myself.
“Wait a second!” Willey said yanking on my
arm. “You are him, aren’t you?”
Jerry their Scout Master jumped in with,
“Well looks like we have a celebrity!”
I was smiling just a little because to be
honest it felt good and made me not so homesick.
Matt grabbed my other arm and pulled me
toward him, “You are THE Alvin
Holloway and you didn’t tell us?”
“Come on guys you’re going to pull my arms
off!” I said to Luke and Matt who were using me to play tug-o-war. “I am just a
regular guy like you guys.”
The kid with the glasses protested, “OH NO YOU’RE NOT!”
Thankfully Jerry came to my rescue. “Alright
everyone lets bring it down a notch or two.”
All through lunch the guys asked me about the
competitions and even asked me about some of the other well known names I’d
surfed against.
I finally had an idea and asked them, “Hey
would you like to see my new board?”
The kid with the glasses got all excited
again. Apparently he was a big fan and probably would have cut off his left ear
if I had asked him too.
“YOU HAVE YOUR SURF BOARD WITH YOU RIGHT
NOW?” he was screaming like a love struck teenage girl meeting some
Jerry threw a hotdog bun at the boy and
nailed him right in the forehead with deadly accuracy; everyone laughed.
“Well I don’t have it in my pocket if that’s
what you mean.” I joked, “But it’s strapped to the roof of our car.”
I think that if I had hesitated standing up
they probably would have hog tied me to a long pole and carried me to the car.
As though they were beholding the Virgin Mother herself they all stood in awe
as John took it down and handed it to me.
“That is the most beautiful thing I have ever
seen!” Luke said.
That kid with the glasses was shaking like a
leaf and he was so wound up that if he had cut a fart he probably would have
shot into orbit.
“Man no one is going to believe we met Alvin
Holloway in
“Anyone have a camera?” Mom asked.
What is the motto for the Boy Scouts? Always
be prepared? Well they were, because every last one of them had a camera and
they all wanted their picture taken with me. So to satisfy everyone I knelt in
the middle of the group behind my new board with everyone standing around me
while John took a picture using each of their cameras.
__________
DAY FOUR ON THE ROAD
We ended up being there at the Aztec Runes so
long that by the time we got going again it was already late in the day. I
don’t know when we stopped for the night; I just remember waking up the
following morning and finding myself lying on the backseat with the blue
plastic tarp wrapped around me like I were a big blue burrito. Inside the
plastic I was soaked to the bone and shivering because it had got fairly cold
that night.
Three key things come to mind when I think
about that particular rest stop. The first was John saying that we were almost
to
When I woke up I had to go number two very
earnestly and I wasn’t even halfway to the rest stop building before the smell
hit me. I can only think of one word to describe the smell and that would be
RUDE! The smell was so bad and I couldn’t stand it so soon after eating my
breakfast; I immediately spun on my heals and hurled
every last bit of my food back up.
After I had blew my breakfast all over a
nearby bush I took in as deep a breath as my lungs would hold, then turned back
around and ran as fast as I could into the crap-house. Unfortunately, there
wasn’t a single hole vacant and to make matters worse there were two men ahead
of me. I held my breath as long as I could but it wasn’t long enough. This tall
dark skinned man who was in line directly ahead of me looked down at me and
asked, “You ok kid?” Unable to hold my breath any long I released what little
air there was left in my lungs and sucked in frantically. “Oh god!” I gasped
and quickly covered my mouth and nose with my shirt and hands.
The big guy chucked at me, held up his hands as
if I was robbing him and asked, “Hey you’re not going to be sick on me are
you?”
I shook my head without uncovering my mouth
and nose.
The man then asked, “You look like your
holding back an ocean!”
I shook my head again and was slightly amazed
that he couldn’t tell that I was dressed in pee drenched clothes.
By the look he gave me I could tell that he’d
figured out that I needed to poop and I didn’t have much time left. “Oh got a
loaf in the oven do ya?”
“A loaf in the oven?” I thought, “Who the
heck talks like that?” With exaggerated movement I nodded while trying to
breathe shallowly threw the fabric of my shirt; the fact that it was wet with
stale pee didn’t matter to me right then. I hadn’t noticed that I was dancing
back and forth from one foot to the other until the man brought it to my
attention.
I think I grunted some sort of desperate
reply because he and the man ahead of him allowed me to take the next hole that
became available. Thankfully I didn’t have to wait but about another ten
seconds.
Normally when I am around a smell for a
while, good or bad, my nose gets use to it and I can no longer smell it but not
this time. That smell was so bad that every breath was sheer horror! When I was
finished wiping myself I didn’t bother to stop and wash my hands; I just wanted
out of that place as fast as possible.
As I was coming out I ran into that same man
who let me cut in front of him before. When I ran into the back of him he
reached around as he was turning and grabbed my shoulder. I guess he thought I
was falling or something.
“Hey you’re all wet!” he said loud enough for
everyone else to hear. “Did ya fall in or something?”
I was too embarrassed to think of a good
response so instead I excused myself and started running for the car but about
half way back is when the third thing I remember about that rest stop happened.
Well it wasn’t something that happened rather
then something I saw. There was an old brown van; you know the big kind that
normally have lot of seats in them? Well the back doors of the van were wide
open and I could see inside and there was a boy sitting inside that looked to
be about the same size as me and he didn’t have on anything except for what was
obviously a very big diaper. At the time I didn’t think too much about it. I
mean, I guess I figured he was handicapped or something but within a day that
assumptions would be brought into question in a very big way.
Thankfully, when I got back to the car mom
and John didn’t make me go back into the restroom to wash up as they had done
at the other rest stop we’d spent the night at before. I told them about me
puking all over that bush and mom offered to make me a sandwich but I didn’t
think I would be hungry again for a long time.
I was sick most of that morning and didn’t
start feeling a little better until mom announced that we had reached the home
of our 18th President, Ulysses S. Grant. We didn’t stay there but a couple of
hours; however it was one of the neatest places and I even got to meet Ulysses
S. Grant. I know he wasn’t the real one, I’m not that stupid, but it was still
cool to shake his hand and get an old fashion black and white picture taken
with him. Boy we had to stand still a long time for that picture but it was
worth it.
That very same day we stopped at the home of
President Abraham Lincoln in
John said that he didn’t think he could stand
sleeping in the car that smelled of urine for another night so we got to stay
at a real motel that night and we got to take real baths in a real bathtub and
eat real food in a real restaurant. We also got to get our cloths washed which
was good because my pajamas smelled so bad that putting them on made me gag.
When it was my turn for my bath my mom kept
saying stuff like, “Make sure you wash extra well since you didn’t get to wash
up this morning.” Or “You better do an extra good job washing because if you still
smell like pee when you’re done then I’m going to come in there and wash you
myself.” That last one was enough encouragement for me to scrub every inch of
my body three times. And before I was done I used the shampoo to wash all over
because it smelled like strawberries. Sure enough, when I came out of the
bathroom both mom and John gave me the sniff test. I passed too!
__________
DAY FIVE ON THE ROAD
In
On the way back to our car from the bicycle
shop we found a bunch of black teenaged guys leaning against and some were even
sitting on our car. When John asked them to move they started cussing and
acting all tough but then this black man in a nice suit walked up. He began
yelling at the guys and shouting Bible stuff at them; when he said that he was
going to tell their mothers every last one of them took off running in
different directions. Before that black man showed up it was pretty scary but it
was so funny when all those guys took off running like that. I guess he put the
fear of mama into them.
The black man turned out to be a Baptist Preacher
named George W. Doleshire and though he talked kind of loud and kind of weird,
he was an ok guy. I think
When mom and John explained to him that we
were on our way to our new lives in
Boy, I sure am glad we went to his house because
if we hadn’t, I never would have met his daughter Jacquelyn. Jacquelyn is my
age and the only sister to seven older brothers. She and I became friends the
moment we said ‘Hi’ to one another! I guess I liked her so much because we
liked a lot of the same stuff and we had almost the same color skin too.
In
I don’t think Jacquelyn’s brothers much liked
me being so nice with their sister because they kept bugging us and wouldn’t
let us alone. But she told them to butt-out and even punched two of them when
they wouldn’t stop staring at me as if I was going to be their next meal.
The other reason that Jacquelyn and I became
such good friends so quickly was because she didn’t make fun of me when she
found out that I wet the sheets at night. Pastor Doleshire and his wife invited
us to stay the night and wouldn’t take no for an answer. Jacquelyn had been in
the kitchen sneaking us some cookies and Cokes when she overheard my mom
telling her parents that I had a problem with wetting at night. Jacquelyn came
out looking all glum and quiet like.
“What’s wrong?” I asked when I seen that she
didn’t have the cookies or the Cokes, “Did you get caught?”
She sat down on the street curb next to me
and quietly whispered, “I just heard something I don’t think I was supposed to
hear and I don’t want you to be mad at me.”
“Come on, why would I be mad at you? What did
you hear?” I asked nudging her with my elbow.
She was wringing her hands while staring down
at her orange shoe laces. “I heard your mom saying that you still wet the bed.”
Now I had heard the term ‘wet the bed’ before but only a couple times. Where I
come from, the term is ‘wet the sheet’ but even still I knew what she meant. Before
I could get mad or embarrassed or say anything she quickly blurted out, “But I
don’t care! I like you and I promise I won’t ever tell! And please don’t be mad
at me!” She then threw her arms around me and laid her head on my shoulder
while she hugged me.
Let me tell you, her hugging me right then
was the right thing too do because inside I wanted to jump to my feet and run
away but having her hug me canceled that out and then some! Heck I bet that if
I hadn’t had my shoes on, my toes would have shot off the end of my feet
because they were tingling like crazy!
Unfortunately Jacquelyn wasn’t the only one
that over heard my mom’s conversation and within minutes all seven of her
brothers knew. They started teasing me and saying things like, “I don’t want
the little baby sleeping in my room!” and “He should have to sleep in the
bathtub!” and worst of all, “Since he’s not house broken I bet mom will make
him sleep outside in the dog house!”
I was so glad when Jacquelyn stood up, put
her hands on her hips and said, “I’m gonna tell momma
on you!” and stormed into the house. I don’t know if she actually told on them
but they didn’t say another word to me while we stayed with the Doleshire
family.
Mrs. Doleshire made me a nice bed on the
floor in Jacquelyn’s room and later after everyone went to bed I found out that
Jacquelyn had begged her mom and dad to let me sleep in her room. I don’t think
her dad was too happy with that idea seeing how Jacquelyn is a girl and I am a
boy. However, Mr. Doleshire might be able to scare off a bunch of teenaged boys
but I don’t think he has very much say as to what goes on in his home; I think
Mrs. Doleshire is the real one in charge.
That night something happened that changed my
life forever! While I was alone in the bathroom putting on my pajama’s mom came
in carrying something. She looked kind of scared as she sat down on the toilet
so that she was almost eye to eye with me.
“
I honestly didn’t get it. “Why should I wear
a towel?” I asked her.
Mom smiled nervously and my heart started to
beat really fast but I didn’t know why it was doing that.
“
I tell you what, Sherlock Holmes I am not
because I was still clueless. I crinkled up my nose and asked, “How’s it going
to do that?”
Without answering me she began to unfold it
and I saw that it wasn’t a towel in a plastic bag at all, it was ... GULP ... a disposable diaper!”
“M-m-mom I can’t wear that!” I exclaimed and
quickly realized that I had tears rolling down my face. I pulled my arm free
from her hand and stepped backward as I swallowed hard against the lump that
had formed in my throat. I hated the fact that I was blubbering but I was
honestly scared to death and I had to make sure she knew I was absolutely
against this idea. However my argument wasn’t exactly a stellar example of my
strong grasp of the art of litigation; in fact, in it’s entirety it consisted
of only five measly words. “Mom, please don’t make me!” Pitiful huh?
Well, she did make me... sort of; actually
what she did was trick me into at least trying it on for a minute just to see
how it felt. Now I have never been run threw the heart with a sword, however, I
think I know just how that would feel because when she made me lie down on that
cool bathroom floor while she taped the diaper onto me I swear I thought I was
dieing.
After she had it on me she helped me to stand
up and let me look at myself in the full length mirror that hung on the back of
their bathroom door. When I told her that I didn’t like it she said that since
I already had it on that I might as well keep it on for the night.
Like I said, she had tricked me into trying
and now she was trying to change the rules. But on no! I wasn’t about to fall
into her trap a second time.
When I tried to reach for one of the tapes
she smacked the back of my bare leg really hard and told me to leave it alone.
It didn’t really hurt when she hit me, I think it stunned me more then anything
else. When I tried to protest again she once more took hold of my hands and
tried to explain that we were guests in the Doleshire’s
home and she wouldn’t have me throwing a tantrum and embarrassing her and my
father.
“Embarrasing her
and John?” I thought to myself, “Yeah I am sure you both would just die of
humiliation!” I’m sure if I had actually said that I probably would have got
smacked again.
I suppose I should be greatful
that she at least let me put my pajama’s on over the bright white plastic
diaper so that it was out of site; well, that’s what I tried to make myself
believe. Actually, there was no way to hide the fact that I was wearing the
diaper. It was so thick that it made my butt look like I’d been stung by a
thousand African Killer bees!
When mom opened the bathroom door I checked
that the hallway was clear and then ran to Jacquelyn room. Thankfully she
wasn’t there yet, and I saw that Mrs. Doleshire had laid several blankets on
the floor for me. I dove under the blankets and made sure to pull them all the
way up to my chin. I then wiped my tears away; I didn’t want Jacquelyn thinking
I was a crybaby.
Not too long after that Jacquelyn came in
wearing a pair of pink footie-pajamas that had a
little cork screw tale in the back just like a little piggy. I was instantly
reminded of that one Christmas movie where the boys
aunt sends him a set of bunny-rabbit footie-pajamas
complete with ling ears and a big fluffy tail. I couldn’t help myself and gave
her a little snort of laughter. Boy, was I glad when
she laughed too. She sat down on the side of her bed, pretending to step on my
leg as she did so.
I rose up onto my elbows and said, “Hey watch
it!” even though I knew she was only messing with me.
“So let me see!” she said.
“See what?” I asked.
Jacquelyn rolled her eyes, leaned forward and
gave me a shove. I fell back against the pillow and was just about to laugh
when she reached out and yanked the blanket back exposing me from the knees up.
I scrambled to cover myself again but she giggled and flung the blanket to the
other side of the room.
“HEY!” I complained.
“Hey yourself!” She said and pushed me back
down again. This time however she sat down on my chest so that I was looking
right at her curly little pink piggy tail. I felt her pull at the waistband of
my pajama bottoms and try as I might I couldn’t stop her from partially depantsing me.
“Jacquelyn stop!” I
cried but she silenced me with a bounce of her bottom against my chest
effectively driving the air right out of my lungs.
While I was trying to get my breath back she
surprised me again by spinning around and planting a kiss right on my lips. I
didn’t need a mirror to know that my entire head had just turned bright red. I
probably looked like one of those red thermometers in the cartoons.
I was flabbergasted! It was the first time in
my life I had ever been kissed by a girl like that... I mean a girl that wasn’t
my mom or grandmothers or somebody like that.
She grabbed hold of my chin and shook my
head, “You better breath!”
“I can’t! You’re squishing me.” I groaned.
She smiled and I never thought I would ever
see a smile more beautiful then my mom’s but I sure did that night.
“Oh!” she said and got up.
I didn’t try to pull my pajama pants back up
or to hide my diaper. Heck, I didn’t move at all because I couldn’t.
She brought the blanket back over to me but
before covered me back up she knelt down and pulled my pajama bottoms back up.
She was smiling so gleefully as she did it and after tucking the blanket around
me she kissed me again only this time she did it slow and for what seemed like
a long time.
“Good night
I’m not sure if I said good night back or
not. I must have laid there staring at the darkened ceiling for over an hour.
My mind and my heart wouldn’t slow down so that I could go to sleep. When I did
fall to sleep I woke up a few hours later because I felt cold. I rose up on my
elbows to see that I’d kicked off my blanket. For half a second I thought about
leaving it off but then I was worried that one of Jacquelyn brothers or her
parents might come in and realize that I was wearing a diaper. It never even
occurred to me that the diaper might have been her parent’s idea.
__________
DAY SIX ON THE ROAD
The next morning I awoke to find Jacquelyn
was already up and gone from her room. At first I had forgot about the diaper
but then I sat up and felt the oddest feeling. It felt like I was sitting on
wet grass or something like that. I pulled the soft blanket back and seen that
not only was the sheet beneath me dry but so were my pajamas. I felt the front
of the diaper through my pajama pants, “Wow!” I gasped, “It really worked!”
And then panic set in.
What was I supposed to do now? Take off the
wet diaper and do what with it? Mercifully John walked in just in time; another
second or two and I would have worked myself into a full-on
shark frenzy.
John greeted me with a jovial, “Good morning Tiger-fish!”
which was something that he hadn’t called me since I was like six-years-old.
“How’d you sleep?” he asked.
I didn’t know if he knew about the diaper or
not and suddenly I felt overwhelmingly ashamed. He probably already sew the
gleaming white evidence however instinct told me that I needed to cover up and
fast. With a swift yank I pulled the blanket up to my stomach.
John heaved a heavy sigh, “Oh no! Don’t tell
me the diaper didn’t work?”
“Huh? Did mom tell you?” I asked both
astonished and mortified to hear him say the actual D-word.
He half smiled, knelt down, pulled the
blanket back and felt the sheet around me. “Well I’ll be,” he prattled, “it did
work! That’s terrific!”
When he nudged my chin with his finger I
realized that I was sitting there staring at him with my mouth hanging open.
“What do you think of that?” He asked as
though he were testing the waters with me to see how I felt about it. When I
didn’t do or say anything he then asked, “Are you going to need help getting
out of it?”
I guess I was still in some sort of state of
shock because I wasn’t able to answer him.
“Tell you what; just lie back and let your
old dad see how rusty his changing skills are.” John said pushing on my chest
until I was lying flat on my back.
He took hold of my pajamas down by my ankles
and with a single, firm tug he yanked my pajama bottoms all the way off; kind
of the way a magician pulls a table cloth off a table without disturbing the
dishes.
Even in my befuddled state I could tell that
the tapes made a lot of noise as he pulled them away from the plastic. And when
he pulled the front of the diaper open the cool morning air hit my damp skin
causing a tremor to run through me.
“Cold?” he asked.
I think I nodded.
“You know something?” John said and then
continued, “I think this could have held quite a bit more.”
He slid his hand under the small of my back
and lifted my bottom several inches so that he could pull the diaper out from
under my butt.
As though he was having a conversion with
himself he continued to talk, “Maybe we should try these tonight too. It might
keep the car from smelling like an outhouse.”
John rolled the diaper into a nice ball and
used the tapes to hold it closed while saying, “You should put your pajama
bottoms back on. You’re mother is running a hot bath for you right now.”
He didn’t have to tell me twice. I snapped
out of my daze, sprang to my feet, pulled my pajamas back on and didn’t even
care that they were inside out. I could only praying that none of Jacquelyn’s
brother’s were anywhere around as I ran from the room, across the hallway and
into the bathroom.
Sure enough mom was bent over the bathtub
testing the water with her hand to be sure it wasn’t too hot.
“Good morning.” She said with a warm smile.
Quickly I pushed the bathroom door closed
before anyone could walk by and see in. I’m not sure why I was still so
nervous; maybe I was scared that someone my catch a whiff of the stale urine
that was clinging to my lower region.
“Oh you already took it off?” Mom asked as she
realized that I was no longer wearing the diaper.
“John did it!” I said accusingly.
She seemed to be surprised by that bit of
information, “Well that’s wonderful!” she finally said before reaching out and
taking hold of my arm.
She pulled me toward her and then felt my
pajama bottoms for any sign of moisture. “Well it did a good job of keeping
your pajama’s dry.”
I wasn’t sure I could take much more and in a
still small voice I asked, “Mom, can I take my bath now.”
“Of course you can sweetie.” She said kissing
my cheek and petting my hair.
Alone in the bathroom, I stripped off my
night clothes and climbed into the tub. The water was a bit warmer then I like
it but it helped to soothe and calm my troubled heart. However, I didn’t stay
in the tub for very long. I had heard the unmistakable sound of Jacquelyn’s
brothers walking past the bathroom door and feared that one or more of them
might walk in on me.
It had occurred to me to lock the bathroom
door before I got into the tub but there hadn’t been a lock on the door. Back
home we had the kind of door knobs that you push in and turn a quarter turn to
lock them but in the Doleshire house all of the knobs appeared to be unlockable except for the front and rear doors to the
house. I don’t know why I checked, it just seemed to be something odd that I
had to look into before we left. I guess in
When I got out of the bath I realized that I
didn’t have any other clothes to put on. It hadn’t occurred to me before and
thus I had no choice but to slip my pajama’s back on so that I could go in
search of something else to wear.
I didn’t have to look very far to find my
clothes. Lying nicely folded on Jacquelyn’s bed were my clothes which mom had
laid out for me. After dressing I found my way downstairs where Jacquelyn was
sitting waiting for me at the breakfast table; unfortunately, so were her
brothers.
Ok, I need to explain something here...
although her brother’s didn’t actually say anything about last nights oddity,
every last one of them were looking at me weird; like maybe they knew something
after all. However it was Jacquelyn’s oldest brother that was giving me the
strongest negative vibes. I could tell that he really didn’t like me and the
only reason I can think of is because they didn’t like their only sister having
a guy friend. That’s when it hit me... THE KISS!
“OH MY GOD!” I thought to myself, “THEY KNOW
ABOUT HER KISSING ME!”
While I was secretly having a heart attack I
tried not to look at any of them as I ate my breakfast of fried eggs, bacon and
toast. However, I could feel their eyes boring holes through me.
After breakfast Jacquelyn and I buddied
around for about an hour until mom said that we were leaving. During that time
I kept having the feeling like at any second her brothers were going to jump
out of hiding and turn me into shark bait. But they never did reappear; not
until it was time for us to get back on the road.
Leaving Jacquelyn and her family was nearly
as difficult as it was leaving all my friends back in
Jacquelyn’s brothers were all standing or
sitting on the front steps to their house giving me their meanest looks. When
Jacquelyn gave me a kiss goodbye, not as passionately as the night before but
still pretty hot, every last one of them stood up but thankfully they didn’t
come after me.
Bashfully I looked up at her mom who was
standing right there. She gave me a knowing smile and a wink. Boy I was glad
she didn’t get mad.
Before I got into the car Jacquelyn whispered
into my ear, “See ya diaper buddy!”
“What? What was that?” I wanted to say but I
never got the chance. John pushed me into the car saying, “Alright Romeo!
That’s enough of that!”
I spent quite a while sitting quietly in the
back seat looking out the window at the trees blurring past. Besides flipping
and turning those four words around and around in my mind I also found myself missing
my friends back in California more then ever and now I was missing my newest
friend Jacquelyn too. I also kept replaying in my mind how Jacquelyn had pulled
down my pajamas to get a look at the diaper I was wearing and each time I
though about it my heart felt like it was going to explode right through my shirt.
That night we didn’t stop at another highway
rest stop but instead John found a public campground somewhere just outside of
We had stopped around seven in the evening
which meant I got to swim for about an hour before they closed the pond for
swimming.
I was having so much fun and enjoying the
campgrounds that even after it was dark mom had to come
hunt me down and drag me back to our car.
“
“Oh, alright!” I surrendered and ran back to
the car where I found that John had built a cool camp fire. Apparently the camp
grounds also sells fire wood for a nominal fee. Since I was too busy running
around I hadn’t yet had my dinner so John stuck a couple hotdogs onto a
sharpened stick and gave it to me to roast over the fire. While I ate my
hotdogs mom made us S’mores which by the way are better when made over an open
fire then an open oven door.
“Boy these are good mom!” I said with half a
mouth full of S’more.
“Don’t talk with your mouth full.” She said
while licking the chocolate from her fingers.
We sat watching the fire for a while until I
happened to yawn which was my parent’s queue to send me to the backseat of the
car for a good nights sleep. However things played out a bit different then I
was expecting them too.
True to his word; as soon as I began showing
signs that I was growing sleepy John said, “I better get your diapers out of
the back so you can get some shuteye.”
I was caught off guard, “What?” I began
stammering, “You mean... I mean... Wait... You really?”
When mom opened the side door to the backseat
I exclaimed, “Right here? What if someone sees? But mom I don’t want to wear
one again!”
“Keep your voice down,” she said, “No body
will see and besides no one here knows you or will ever get to see you again.
And if someone did manage to see you they probably won’t even remember come
morning.”
“But mom!” I pleaded but it was no good. They
were both firmly decided that I was going to wear a diaper for the second night
in a row and no amount of pleading, whining or crying was going to sway them.
So with my head hanging low I hesitantly
climbed into the back of our car and laid myself across the seat. After she had
taped the diaper on me she took my pajamas and said, “It’s going to be a warm
night so I don’t think you’ll need to wear these.”
“Moooooooom!” I
tried to protest but she told me to cover up with a sheet and go to sleep. It took
quite a while for me to fall to sleep because I couldn’t shut my brain off. I
kept thinking about Jacquelyn, how she kissed me both times and what she had
said to me just before we left.
__________
DAY SEVEN ON THE ROAD
When I woke up the next morning the car was
already moving.
“Where are we?” I yawned and lifted myself up
onto one elbow.
“
“
“You’ll see!” was all mom
would tell me.
“Hungry?” John asked.
“Starving!” I said sitting up and suddenly
remembering that I was waking up wearing a diaper for the second morning in a
row. Before my brain engaged my mouth opened, “I-I’m still wearing a diaper!”
“That’s my boy!” John started to say,
“Sharpest tool in the shed!”
“You were sleeping so soundly that we didn’t
want to wake you up.” Mom said, “And besides, it looked like it could hold a
lot more anyway.”
“But...” I started to object but stopped when
I realize I didn’t know what to say.
“And besides, this way we don’t have to stop until
we get to where we’re going. We’ll be able to make better time.” John added.
Mom handed me a piece of cold chicken that
Mrs. Doleshire had sent along with us and I sat back into the seat to sulk. We
stopped about an hour later and I thought to myself, “Finally I can get out of
the wet diaper and into some normal clothes!” but that’s not exactly what happened.
“
“But mom I don’t wet when I am awake!” I was
so worked up that I actually began to cry, “I don’t want to wear a diaper now!
I’m not a baby!”
John returned from going pee and when I
spotted him I cried out, “John tell her I don’t need...” but I didn’t even get
to finish before he snapped at me.
“Do as you’re told and don’t argue with your
mother or so help me, I’ll pull you out of that car and whip your bare behind
right here in front of everyone!” he yelled.
“NOOO!” I shouted and earned a smack across
my face by mom.
It has been so long since mom had struck me
for any reason that it honestly scared the fight right out of me.
“Now lie down!” she ordered and I reluctantly
laid myself on the seat.
When she was done taping a fresh diaper onto
me she tried to slide my jeans on over it but the diaper was too thick and she
couldn’t get them to zip let alone snap.
“Oh!” She said as if a light bulb had gone on
above her head, “Honey, could you see if there is a bigger pair of pants in one
of the bags of clothes they gave us.”
John popped the last bite of his chicken leg
into his mouth before getting out of the car again. It didn’t take him long to
find pants that would fit over the diaper although I had been hoping he
wouldn’t find any and mom would have to let me wear my underwear and regular
jeans.
Mad doesn’t even come close to describing how
I was feeling; I was so dang hot that if someone would have cracked an egg over
my head it would have started sizzling. I didn’t talk to mom and John the rest
of the morning. Even when they offered me something to wash down the chicken I
didn’t reply. It wasn’t until mom asked, “Are you done being a brat yet because
you are welcome to stay in the car while your father and I go in there.”
Still buckled in place, I leaned forward to
look out the front windshield to where mom was pointing and I don’t think I
believed what I was seeing until mom said, “There it is; the Ripley’s Believe
it or Not Museum!”
I screamed when I saw the giant skyscraper
lying on its side with King Kong standing on it. “ARE WE GOING IN?”
“We sure are!” John said sticking his finger
into his right ear; he then jokingly added, “However, we don’t have to if you
don’t want too.”
I started bouncing on the seat only held in
place because I had on the seatbelt. “YES—YES—YES, I WANT TO GO! I WANT TO
GO!!!!!”
Mom and John laughed and I think for the very
first time during the whole trip so far I realized that John wasn’t drunk and
he was acting a lot like he used to before he lost his job.
Ok, so aside from being out on the ocean on a
surfboard the Ripley’s Believe it or Not Museum is now my most favorite place
on the planet and I think I saw every exhibit before mom and John found me and
said it was lunch time. We got our hands stamped with invisible ink on the way
out so that after we ate we could get back in to the museum. I made the lady at
the gate give me my stamp on my forehead instead of my hand; she thought it was
pretty funny too.
It wasn’t until we were back in the car that
I realized I’d been so excited and enjoying myself so
much that I’d completely forgot that I was wearing a diaper all morning. I was
sitting in the backseat eating a ham sandwich when I got the feeling that I
needed to pee and I don’t mean a small feeling... I mean, I felt like if I
didn’t get to go pee soon I was going to have pee shooting out of my ears and
nose like a lawn sprinkler! I tried to tell mom and John that I needed to go
but I had a mouth full of sandwich. And then when I tried to swallow it before
I had it adequately chewed I got choked a little. I coughed once and it came
back up but that little cough was enough to cause me to begin flooding the
diaper I was wearing. I knew it was happening and even though I tried to stop
the pee from coming out it kept coming and nothing I could do was going to stop
it. What made it even worse was that I started crying like I’d broken my leg or
arm or something worse.
Several minutes later, after scaring my
parents nearly to death I wiped at my tears and without looking at either one
of them I told them what had happened. I thought they were going to be upset
with me or say I couldn’t go back into the museum but they weren’t upset at
all. As a matter of fact, when I told them what had happened John started
laughing.
He said, “I completely forgot you were
wearing that!”
“Honey don’t laugh!”
Mom said hugging me tightly, “Can’t you see that he’s embarrassed enough
already.”
“Didn’t you have to pee while you were
inside?” mom asked.
I shrugged.
“Having too much fun huh?” John asked.
I nodded and wiped my tears with the back of
my hand.
However, that wasn’t the worst thing to have
happen that day. Once I had calmed down and finished my lunch mom had me lie
down on the back seat while she removed my wet diaper and then using a bottle
of water they had bought inside she used one of my t-shirts to wipe some of the
pee off.
Don’t ask me why because I honestly don’t
know why I didn’t protest when mom suggested that she change my wet diaper and
put me into a dry diaper. I guess I was so embarrassed to have wet when I was
wide awake that I just wanted to block out the whole thing.
Boy that bottled water was sure cold and when
she was satisfied that I was clean enough down there she slide a dry diaper
under my bottom and pulled the front up over my privates. That’s when we all
heard some kid shout, “Mommy see, I told you he wears diapers just like me!”
I wonder if it is possible for so much blood
to rush to your face from embarrassment that your face could explode right off
our skull? I imagine that it would be kind of like
over filling a water-balloon.
“Joey, you know better then that!” A woman’s
voice scolded, “How would you like it if someone shouted something like that
while you were getting your diaper changed?”
Joey, whoever he was, then shouted, “Sorry!”
I put my hands over my face as the woman
said, “I am so very sorry. He gets a little too excited sometimes.”
John then added, “Kids? Don’t you wish they
came with an off switch?”
I heard the lady laugh, “I’d settle for a
mute button about now?”
It took me a while before I was recovered
enough to dare setting up and risking someone getting a look at my glowing red face.
But when I did set up no one was around that I could see other then mom and
John.
“So are you too mortified to go back in?”
John finally asked.
I had to think about it for all of three
seconds before I shook my head, “No, I’m ready.” Even though I didn’t really
feel ready, there wasn’t much that could keep me from touring the museum yet again.
At first I was feeling uncomfortable and felt
as though everyone was looking at me but once I was at the front door again all
apprehension dissipated out the top of my head. The same stamp lady was still
there and I had to hold my head under this black light so that she could see my
return stamp. She smiled and waved me in.
Just as before, mom and John let me go off by
myself, while they went off in a different direction. Since I had already been
through the whole museum I knew which exhibits I wanted t see again. The first
one I went to see was the Giant Three-toed Sloth and I hadn’t been standing
there very long when I heard that same kids voice from
the parking lot.
“Wow, look mommy! Look at the giant bear!” he
broadcasted.
Before I even saw them I felt myself blushing
again. I looked around and spotted the kid standing on the far side of the
sloth exhibit.
His mother corrected him, “That isn’t a bear;
it’s a Sloth.”
I’m not a very good judge of age but I guess
maybe he could have been six years old but no older. He had very short,
bright-red hair and freckles to match.
“You sure that ain’t
a bear mommy?” the boy asked.
It was obvious that the lady coming up behind
him was his mother because she had the same color hair only a lot more of it.
She wasn’t the most attractive woman in the world but she also was a long way
from ugly too.
Right about then a really fat man stepped on
my foot.
“Ooow! Hey watch it
mister!” I shouted.
The fat oaf didn’t even bother to apologize
for nearly crippling me.
When I looked up again the boy and his mother
were gone. I was surprised to find that I was a little bummed about that but
then I was nearly scared out of my skin when from behind me the boy announced
himself by saying, “Hey you’re the one I seen before!”
My heart stopped beating when I thought he
was going to publicize to the whole museum that I was wearing a diaper.
“My name is Joey! What’s yours?” he asked.
A little panicked I tried to say my name but
my voice cracked and only added to my already ruddy-red countenance.
I cleared my throat and tried to answer him
again, “
I looked around for his mother and seen her
walking toward us. Joey leaned forward and whispered softly, “I wear diapers
just like you!”
Ok, at least he whispered it but that didn’t
much matter because I think at that moment they could have used my face to heat
a small third world country for several years.
Joey gave me a wink and was about to say
something again when his mother reached out and snatched him back. “I told you
to stop wandering off.”
Sort of secretively Joey pointed at me and
said softly, “But mom that is him!”
I was no longer the only one with a red face
then because his mother flushed as red hot as I felt.
“I am so sorry if he, uh, we... I mean if we
embarrassed you.” She said very ruefully.
“His name is
“
“Stand back and give him some air!” whoever
that was, they sounded closer now.
“It’s ok he just fainted.” It sounded like a
woman speaking.
“
“Dad?” I heard myself call out.
“It’s ok
“Dad, my head hurts!” I said.
“I think he hit his head when he fainted.”
And now I knew that the woman’s voice I’d heard calling my name had been Joey’s
mom.
That same lady that had stamped my forehead
had come over too as well as a Japanese looking security guard. After a few
minutes I was sitting up holding a cold pack against the back of my head. And
within ten minutes I felt fine again except for the back of my head which had
formed a nice big lump.
After everyone else had drifted away Joey’s
mom, who we found out was named Beth, explained to my parents what had happened
and apologized profusely for what had happened.
“Honest mom, I’m ok!” I said just wishing
that it had never happened.
“Gosh
That same security guard came back with a
tall man in a dark blue suit. The man said his name but I don’t remember it
now. He asked a few questions and when everything was done Joey and I both had
free Ripley’s Believe it or Not shirts with matching ball caps and a tiny fake
shrunken head on a leather string that we wore around our necks.
“Gee whiz,” John said, “If you had only broken
your arm or leg too we could have probably taken the Giant Sloth with us too.”
“Daaad!” I grumbled.
When mom explained to Joey’s mom that we were
moving to
He was only silenced when his mom placed her
hand tightly over his mouth.
They had a big farm not very far from the
museum and a really big farm house too. And it was just Joey and his mom
because his dad was in
I was no sooner out of the car then Joey was
dragging me off. “Come on I want to show you my fort.” He said.
“Boy’s, dinner will be ready in about thirty
minutes!” Beth called after us.
“Ok!” Joey shouted.
I looked back at mom and saw her waving at me
as if to say that it was ok for me to go.
Joey had dragged me all over the place for
about twenty minutes when he suddenly stopped.
“What’s the matter?” I asked.
“Wait!” he said and then after about a minute
he said, “Ok let’s go!”
“Hold on a sec, why did we stop?” I asked out
of curiosity.
“I had to go!” He said as if it wasn’t such a
big deal.
With mouth hanging open and eyes bugging out
of my skull I exclaimed, “Did you just?!”
“Huh?” He said and turned to see why I wasn’t
moving.
I lost control of the volume of my voice and
couldn’t help but blurt out, “OH MY! YOU DID DIDN’T
YOU?!”
I was interrupted by a high pitched clanging
bell sound that came from the direction of the house. Joey started running
toward the house and called back, “Come on
It took me a moment to recover before I took
off after him. Man he could run fast even with a loaded diaper on; my diaper
was a little wet and I was having a hard time running; I didn’t know how he was
able to go so darn fast. He got to the house a good thirty seconds before I
did. Mom, I stepped threw the door just as Joey was saying, “I need changed
first.”
To my horror mom looked at me and asked, “
Her question shocked me into silence. When I
didn’t respond she came over and stuffed her hand down inside the front of my
diaper.
“Yes you do.” She said.
Before I could offer any resistance she took
my hand and the two of us followed Beth and Joey into his room. Joey’s room
wasn’t anything out of the ordinary. Cattycornered between two windows was his
twin bed with a blue bedspread and a stuffed green hippopotamus lying against
the pillow. Of course the hippo was the very first thing I noticed because it
was wearing a bright white disposable diaper. Besides the bed, there was a
white dresser with a lamp on top of it and a short stack of shelves filled with
books and toys. The one odd item in the room was what appeared to be a brightly
colored vinyl table cloth that was spread out over the blue carpeting on the
floor. Without being told to do so Joey slipped off his shoes, pulled off his
pants and laid himself down on the vinyl mat.
“Come on,” Mom said lifting my left leg and
pulling off my shoe.
I didn’t say a word while mom removed my
other shoe and then my pants. I was too busy watching Beth remove the tapes
from Joey’s obviously bloated diaper. However, when Beth opened the diaper all
three of us gagged at the same time.
“Oh Joey what have you been eating?” His mom
teased him.
Joey giggled and said, “Skunk berries!”
Mom guided me down onto the mat while I
pulled the front of my shirt up over my mouth and nose to breathe.
When mom pulled open the front of my diaper
Beth made the comment, “Looks like he might be getting a bit of a rash. You
should try this.” She handed what looked to be a tube of toothpaste to my mom.
“It will clear up even a bad diaper rash overnight.”
For half a second Joey and I made eye
contact. He was grinning ear-to-ear while his mom was cleaning his poop covered
butt.
My own mom seemed to be taking forever to get
me into a dry diaper and every second that passed I felt myself growing redder
and redder.
And then I felt someone thump my chest. I
looked to see that it was Joey. He was still grinning and asked me, “Why are
you so red?”
His mother hushed him for which I was ever so
grateful!
When we were both diapered we stood up and I
was about to reach for my pants when Joey asked, “Mom can we not have pants
since we are at home?”
“Well
“Hey Tiger-fish!” John said when he saw me
and I could tell that he noticed right away that I didn’t have on pants.
I quickly went to the table and sat down
making sure to scoot my chair up as close to the table as I could in an effort
to hide my diaper. Of course Joey sat right next to me.
Once we started eating I started to calm down
a little and by the time we started dessert I was feeling almost normal again.
For dinner we had grilled salmon steaks, corn on the cob, buttered potatoes and
garlic biscuits.
While we were eating it started to rain and
by the end of dinner it had worked up to a full out thunderstorm. Since it was
raining we couldn’t go back out so Joey and I went to his room where he showed
me all of his stuff. Turns out that he was into matchbox cars the same as me
but he had a heck of a lot more of them then I do.
After we had been playing with his cars for a
while I got up the courage to ask him why he wore diapers.
“I got kicked by a mule with I was just
little.” He said.
That sounded painful and I told him so, “Wow
I bet that hurt!”
“I don’t remember it,” he said, “but mom says
I almost died and was in the hospital for almost three months.”
He then stood up, turned his back to me and pulled
down the back of his diaper several inches to reveal a moon shaped scare just
above his left butt cheek. It was about the size of the palm of my hand.
I regretted bringing up the subject when he
asked, “How come you wear diapers?”
After stammering and nearly choking on my own
spit, I explained to him about my problem and how I ended up wearing diapers
now. He didn’t interrupt me at all and listened very interestedly. When I
finished I expected him to begin asking a bunch of questions but the only question
he asked was, “That girl really kissed you like that?”
I chucked, “Yeah she did!”
“Wow!” he said.
We played until bedtime which was when our
moms came to change us. I was still dry so I didn’t need changed but Joey was
soaked.
I figured I would be sleeping on the floor of
Joey’s room but his mom produced another bed that slid out from under his
regular bed. She called it a trundle bed.
When we were alone again, after being tucked
in, we talked for the longest time. I don’t know how late it was when John
poked his head into the room as said, “
__________
DAY EIGHT ON THE ROAD
I was awake before Joey but I quietly laid there
until he woke up. It was actually kind of nice to lie there alone with my
thoughts. Back in
There was this one time when I had paddled
out with
That day was one of the most peaceful days
ever. However at Joey’s house it wasn’t that quiet; I could hear the raindrops
dancing on the metal roof and something outside was flapping in the wind. It
sounded wooden and kind of melodious in a way.
As I laid there thinking my mind drifted back
in time once more to before John had lost his job and before mom started
working all the time. Given the events of the last couple days I don’t know why
I hadn’t remembered before now but now I’m able to recall every detail from the
night that mom agreed to watch the children of a neighbor whose wife was going
into the hospital to have their fourth child.
It was late, I’m not sure exactly what time
it was but it had already been dark for a while but I hadn’t yet gone to bed,
when our neighbor came pounding on our front door to
say that he had to take his wife to the hospital to have the baby and wanted my
mom to watch his kids. So we took in their other three children; Sebastian who
was 14, Sarah who was 12 and Walter who was 8.
Mom ended up giving my room to Sarah because
she said that girls need more privacy then boys. That meant that Sebastian,
Walter and I had to crash on the living room floor which wasn’t all that bad;
it was a lot like camping out but without the bugs.
What made that night really weird was when
Sarah had taken her older brother Sebastian to the bathroom with her. I can
remember how at the time I had thought how odd it seemed for them to go into
the bathroom at the same time but I suppose I was too young back then to really
understand. Shout back then I still believed that girls had contagious germs
that I could catch if they touched me or anything of mine.
When they came back out of the bathroom Sebastian sprinted for his sleeping bag
and dove in feet first.
When I think back I realize that at the time
I had completely missed out on the fact that the pajamas he was wearing seemed
unusually bulky. Now I can’t help but to wonder if he, like Joey and I, was put
into diapers because of a wetting problem. Then the thought struck me that his
sister, his younger sister I might add, must have been the one that diapered
him. Oh that thought didn’t sound pleasant to me in the least!
Something that is weird? Back then I was
wetting the sheet every night and yet I don’t remember having wet that
particular night. At least I don’t remember having woke up in a wet sleeping
bag. Maybe I didn’t wet at all because I had been too scared of what Sebastian
or Walter might say. Funny how I can remember everything else with such vivid
details but I can’t remember that bit.
I was so caught up reliving that night that I
hadn’t noticed Joey was awake.
“Morning!” he groaned and yawned.
“Ah man Joey you scared the life out of me!”
I exclaimed in a whispered shout.
I lifted myself up onto one elbow so that I
was facing him.
“Sorry, thought you were already awake.” He
said.
“I was but... ah, never mind!” I said
followed by, “Good morning.”
“Sounds like it is still raining.” He said
rubbing at his eyes however before I could say anything he groaned loudly and
said, “Ah man!” and then shouted at the top of his lungs, “MOOOOOOOMMMMM, I
LEAKED AGAIN!”
I couldn’t believe he’d shouted it out like
that. “Wait—But—No—Why—You...” I stammered unable to form a complete thought.
“What?” he said with an innocent shrug.
I guess I got over the initial shock because
I was finally able to speak. “Why did you scream like that?” I said feeling
betrayed.
“Because I need changed.” He shrugged again.
“But you didn’t need to scream for the entire
world to hear!” I said.
“Alright you two!” Beth said as she walked
into the room, “You two aren’t fighting are you?”
But before I could respond she added, “Oh my
now that’s what I call a truly red face.”
Well that little comment didn’t help my
embarrassment in the least and when she acted like she was going to attempt to
change my diaper? Well let me tell you something, there wasn’t anything in this
world that was going to make me lie there while some lady I hadn’t known before
yesterday tried to take a diaper off me! Oh no way, no how! You can be sure I
wasn’t standing... err... I mean sitting for that! I jumped to my feet so with
the intention of running out of that room so fast all they would see of me was
a blur.
Now my getaway would have worked had I not
overlooked one small, seeming insignificant fact which was that my left leg was
completely asleep from the hip down.
I popped up like a rabbit out of its hole and
took a single step before falling flat on my butt. What made it even worse was
when my butt made contact with the floor, whatever it is they put inside
diapers to make them absorbent, came squirting out of the leg opening, and I do
mean squirting. Let me put it this way. Have you ever stomped on a frog and
seen all its guts shoot out of its mouth and butt hole? Well even if you
haven’t, I’m sure you can imagine just how that would look. Now imagine that
same sort of thing but instead of the frog substitute a very wet diaper and you
should understand how it looked when I fell back down.
Joey blasted out with laughter and fell back
into his bed. However, his mom wasn’t laughing; no, she wasn’t laughing at all
because when the stuff shot out the leg hole of my diaper it sprayed all over
her nice satin robe.
Now if my life was a storybook tale right
then my mom or John would have walked into the room to save me from a fatal
case of humiliation but sadly, neither appeared in the doorway.
Joey was still giggling like a hyena hopped
up on laughing gas but his mom wasn’t laughing; she was staring at the globs of
gelatinized pee that stuck to her robe like jam on toast.
“I-I’m sorry!” I said like I had intended for
it to happen.
“Joey so being a goof!” she finally said.
He flipped himself over on his back and
kicked at the air. Except for his insane laughter, he looked just like a
toddler throwing a temper tantrum.
“Joey stop!” I
pleaded.
But he didn’t and before long his mom and I
caught his laughter bug.
Joey giggled and kicked, “That was sooooo funny! Boom—Squish—Splat!”
Beth said, “Alright, I think you too should
get baths,” she paused in thought before saying, “I think maybe I will too.”
“Is my mom up yet?” I asked.
That was when Beth informed me that my
parents had got up early to go back into town.
“They left me?” I said half scared and half
surprised that they would leave me with... well with a stranger!
“No they didn’t leave you!” She said, “They
just wanted to have some time alone. They’ll be back after bit.”
“Can we have a fizzy-plunge in your room?”
Joey asked excitedly.
“Well, I don’t see why not!” Beth said.
“What’s a fizzy-plunge?” I asked.
“You don’t know what a fizzy-plunge is?” Joey
asked with shear amazment.
I took mild offence at the tone he used. It
was almost as if he was purposefully trying to make me feel bad just because I
didn’t know what a fizzy-plunge was. Ok, maybe it wasn’t done on purpose but it
sure felt that way. Maybe it was because Joey was younger and smaller then me
and I felt as though I should know more then him. Anyway I shot him a look but
before I could think up with a halfway decent comeback Beth asked me, “Hasn’t
your mother ever let you take a bath with lots of bubbles in the water?”
“Uh, you mean like a bubble bath?” I asked.
“Exactly!” Joey said.
“Well then why didn’t you say bubble bath?” I
said shooting another mean look at him.
Thankfully, to save my dignity, Beth first
gave me a towel to cover myself with and then she helped me out of my diaper.
It was actually a cleaver way of doing it. I then wrapped the towel around
myself and this time stood up more cautiously. This time my leg didn’t buckle
under my weight.
The bathtub in the bathroom off of Beth’s
bedroom was the biggest bathtub I’d ever seen. It was kind of egg shaped with
half a dozen silver looking rings in the bottom. Now I had heard of a Jacuzzi
before but until then I had never actually seen one so when Beth flipped a
switch on the wall and jets of water began erupting from the silver rings I
clapped and giggled. Yeah I know it was a stupid reaction but I was just caught
up in the wonder of it.
She then picked up a blue plastic bottle. It
wasn’t very big at all; it was about the size of my thumb and she pored the entire contents of the bottle into the water.
Almost instantly the jets of water began a frothing action that caused the
water to form a heavy layer of suds and the room became laced with a wonderful
vanilla aroma. It smelled so good that my mouth watered.
“Ok,” Beth began, “You two get in. I’ll go
get change and then get breakfast started.”
Before she was even out of the room Joey
dropped his towel to the floor which left him naked as the day he was born. I
on the other hand waited until his mother was completely out of site before
lowering my towel.
Joey was the first to climb in but I didn’t
want to run the risk that his mom would come back in so I quickly followed.
As I stepped into the enormous tub I asked
him, “Why do you call it a fizzy-plunge?” but when I looked over at him he was
gone.
“Joey?” I called.
“Come on in! It’s great!” I heard him say
with a giggle.
He was completely lost in the suds and I
could see why it was called a fizzy-plunge. As I lowered my bottom into the
warm water the bubbles quickly rose up and over my head.
“Blow like you are
blowing out birthday candles.” Joey said from somewhere amidst the bubble abiss.
“Why?” I asked.
“Just do it!” he said.
So I did and to my amazement the bubbles
parted leaving sud tunnel. I guess Joey had been
doing the same thing because the I could now see his
grinning face.
“See!” he said and blew again to keep the
tunnel intact.
“Awesome!” I exclaimed.
“Want to see something else cool?” Joey
asked.
“Sure,” I answered.
“Take a deep breath and go under the water
and then open your eyes.” He said.
“No way!” I shot back, “The soap with sting
my eyes.”
“No it won’t.” He answered gleefully, “It is
magic bubbles.”
“Magic bubbles?” I wondered out loud.
“Yeah they don’t make your eyes hurt and you
can even taste them.” He said sticking out his tongue and lapping at the
bubbles.
Hesitently I did likewise and was surprised to find
that the bubbles tasted just as they smelled. “Mmmmm!
Vanilla!”
“Now go under the water and look up threw the
bubbles.” He said.
This time I didn’t hesitate as I took in a
big breath and scooted my bottom so that my head went under the water. There
was only one word for what I saw, AMAZING! It was like looking into a
kaleidoscope of light. Every bubble was a different color of the rainbow and
the colors seemed to blink off and on as one bubble burst and a new one took
its place. It was so beautiful that I didn’t want to poke my head back throw
and disturb the light show but my lungs were beginning to ache for air.
When I finally lifted my head out of the
water I could see that our tunnel was gone. When I tried to take in a breath I
sucked in bubbles too. It was like breathing vanilla flavored air; boy was it
yummy.
Once we had reformed our tunnel I said, “That
was the coolest thing I’ve ever seen.”
“If I could breathe under water I would stay
under there and watch them for hours and hours and hours and hours!” Joey said.
“Yeah we need snorkels!” I said.
“What’s a snor-whatever
you said?” Joey asked after blowing into the tunnel again.
For half a second I thought about giving him
a taste of his own medicine and answering back derogatorily the way he had back
in his room before but I decided against being mean. Instead I said, “It’s a
kind of thing that lets you breath regularly while you are underwater; like a
long curved tube that sticks out above the water.”
“You mean like a straw?” Joey asked.
“Not exactly, a straw would be too small. A
snorkel is bigger and fatter around like...” I trailed off in thought.
“Like a pipe?” he asked excitedly.
“Yeah I guess that’s a good example.” I answered.
“I’ll be right back!” Joey said and launched
himself out of the tub. I stood up to find that the bubbles were up to my chest
but they didn’t seem to be going any higher then that. It was a good thing too
because if they did they would probably be all over the bathroom and flowing
out into the bedroom.
I was back under the water when Joey
returned. I only knew he was back because I heard the underwater splash. When I
came back up for more air Joey was already talking.
“Wait I was under water. What were you
saying?” I asked.
“Oh, I said I think I got something that we
can use.” He said and I felt something jabbing me right in the private parts.
“HEY!” I said tensely, “You got me right were
it counts.”
That made Joey giggle.
“Oops, sorry!” he said with a chuckle.
I took hold of whatever he was handing me and
it felt just like a snorkel however when I stood up and held it above the
bubbles I saw that it was a long piece of yellow plastic tubing that was
flexible.
“What is it?” I asked.
“It is part of my Matchbox race track. It is
for making loop-dee-loops and other cool things like
that.” He said.
“Oh cool! Let me try it.” I said and quickly
dunked my head back under the water with one end of the tube in my mouth and
the other end sticking straight up. It worked perfectly. I was able to breathe
normally and could see the amazing lightshow for as long as I wanted.
When I reemerged I told him how well it
worked and he begged for the tube back so that he could try. He was under the
water a really long time but I knew he was ok because I could hear him
breathing threw the tube. It sounded kind of like Darth Vader from the Star
Wars movies only deeper with a little bit of an echo sound.
Then he surprised me by talking through the
tube. “Al’in I’ you can hear ‘e wiggle your toes.”
It was amazing how well I could understand
him although his voice sounded weird. I wiggled my toes like he said and I
could hear him giggling through the tube. I then stuck my hand under the water
and motioned for him to come up.
“I don’t want too.” Was his response.
I made a fist and shook it at him under the
water. He giggled through the tube even more.
He finally did come back up and gave me
another turn. We took turns breathing through the tube until his mom came back
into the bathroom and announced that breakfast was ready.
“Ah mommy! Five more minutes ok?” Joey
pleaded.
“No, not five more minutes!” She said but not
angry or anything.
“Pleeeeeaaase!” I
added.
“Come on you two before your breakfast gets
cold.” She said.
“What are we having?” I asked.
“Texas-Toast, walnut syrup and peppered ham
steaks.” She said while helping Joey out of the tub.
“Oh look at you, you’re all pruned!” she
teased him.
I guess I forgot to be embarrassed for half a
minute because I climbed out of the tub and was standing there before it hit me
that I was butt naked. It struck me at that very second that it hadn’t bothered
me in the least bit to run around the beaches butt naked for anyone and
everyone to see so what was I acting all embarrassed in front of Joey’s mom? So
just like that I stopped however the diapering thing was still a tough one to
get threw but once she had the two of us re-diapered I was as mellow as a
jellyfish!
Breakfast was really good and I found out
that Texas-Toast is a lot like French-Toast only the bread is about twice as
thick and really filling. The walnut syrup was good too but I still prefer the
good old maple kind. I didn’t much care for peppered ham; I ate it because I
didn’t want to be impolite but it didn’t taste anything like I thought ham
should taste. I’m guessing that my belly wasn’t to keen on it either because
for the rest of that day I had pepper and ham scented farts that burned for
several seconds after each fart. Joey said that pickles do that to him.
Mom and John were gone a lot longer then I
thought they should have been. When they returned the two of them were hugging
all over each other and acting all lovey-dovey. It was gross but at the same
time I guess it was good because they hadn’t been like that back in
When it was time to leave Joey got all bummed
out and teary-eyed. He said he didn’t want me to go and I guess part of me
didn’t want to go either. I mean it was the first time I ever got to see how it
felt to have a little brother and well, it was pretty cool. Beth invited us to
come back to visit someday and I hope we do.
I guess all three of us were getting sick of
always being on the road. I can’t speak for mom and John but I for one was
starting to look forward to finally getting to
Anyway, we drove for a very long time. I
don’t know just how long but it was nearly dark out when we stopped just
outside of
When mom climbed into the backseat to change
my diaper for the night she commented on how wet I was. She even let me feel
how heavy the diaper was; it was pretty heavy too. I didn’t put up any fuss at
all about getting re-diapered that night. I was just glad to be out of that wet
diaper finally.
__________
DAY NINE ON THE ROAD
The following morning John offered to change
my soaking wet diaper while mom was in the ladies room going pee and I asked
him if I could go without a diaper now.
My reasoning was, “I don’t want grandma to
see me like this.” I said with a soft, yet earnest whisper.
Since leaving
“It’s only a few more hours until we get
there. I’ll stop before we get into town so that you can put on regular
underwear again. How’s that sound?”
I beamed and nodded enthusiastically.
“Good!” he added as he zipped up my pants for
me.
I should have known that John would once
again let me down by not keeping his up his end of the bargain.
We hadn’t been back on the road even an hour
before we had a tire blow-out. It was loud which made both mom and me scream as
the car swerved and skidded nearly out of control. It was the right, front passenger
tire that blew and bits of tire flew up past the passenger side windows as John
attempted to get our car off the highway and onto the shoulder of the road.
Scary isn’t a strong enough word for those
few seconds that it took John to get the car stopped. The car shook and swerved
and some stupid jerk had the nerve to blow his horn at us as if John was
purposefully driving so erratically.
Once the car was stopped John asked, “Everyone
alright?”
“Yeah I’m good,” I spoke up, “but can we not
do that again?”
John and mom got out but I was told to stay
in the car. I did as I’d been told however I rolled the window down so that I
could stick my head out to see how bad it was. It was bad ... really bad! Not
only was the tire thrashed to bits, so was the front fender. It looked like a
large piece of the tire must have been flapping as the wheel turned. It had
laid waste to our fender, tearing through the metal is if it had been nothing
more than aluminum foil.
Now what was cool was what happened next.
While mom and John were looking at the damage, this enormous man on this loud
chopper pulled up behind us. When he got off his motorcycle I was struck with
awe at just how big that man was. I’d seen lots of bodybuilders on the beach
and they were big but next to this bad biker dude they would have looked like
scrawny wimps!
“That was a fancy bit of driving back there
mate!” the mountainous man said to John, “Thought for sure you were Dingo
bate.” When he spoke he talked with an Australian accent however his extremely
deep voice mottled it a bit.
When John responded I could hear the fear in
his voice as that man, who had to be at least seven foot tall, walked up to him
and mom. “Uh, yeah well, I think we had a flat.”
“He thinks?” I thought to myself.
“I’d say!” the man said. “You
done a real dagger to your fender!”
“Dagger?” I asked.
“
“Fine looking ankle-biter you got there mam.
Names Doug, Doug Blisken but most just call me Dog.”
He said thrusting his hand out for John to shake.
I noticed right away that his knuckles were
tattooed with a single letter on each finger; they spelled out K-I-L-L.
“I’m John and this is my wife, Melody.” John
said shaking the Dog’s hand.
I caught a glimpse of the back of Dog’s
leather jacket and seen that it said, “Hell’s Angels” with a big flaming skull
in the middle.
“Oh that’s not good!” I mumbled to myself.
A year or two back there was a big problem
when a bunch of Hells Angel’s bikers came threw Chula-Vista. There was some
trouble with the police and several of the bikers had been arrested for driving
their motorcycles on the beach.
“G'day cobber.” He
said and then asked, “Don’t suppose you have a spare?”
When mom told him we did Dog then said, “Well
then little miss, she'll be Apples.”
“I’m Sorry?” Mom asked him.
“Oh sorry,” Dog said pulling the black
bandana off his head, “sometimes forget myself. Uh, what I meant was that every
thing will be all right.”
Unfortunately the spare tire was buried
beneath all of our stuff so John and Dog had to take everything out to get to
it.
“Oy,
ya got a Joey do ya?” I heard
dog ask.
For half a second I thought maybe Joey had
stowed away in the back of our car but then I heard John ask, “What’s a Joey?”
Dog answered with, “Ya
know, a wee one, a baby.”
“Oh no, those are for our son.” John replied
and I knew instantly that Dog had seen the package of diapers.
“Ah I get it. Young fella’s
got a leaky donger does he?” Dog didn’t need to
translate that one for us.
I slunk down in the seat and tried to hide my
face. When they finally got the tire out Dog said, “Ah, there you are ya little beauty!” and it didn’t take them long to get the
tire changed.
“Ah, have a gander at that mate!” Dog said
holding the shredded wheel up.
At hearing that, I sat back up and looked out
the car window. I saw for myself that the rim of the tire was missing a large
piece of the metal on the inside part.
“Well that’s not good.” John said with half a
laugh.
“Bit of a nasty like that, you’re lucky you
didn’t have a real gutzer ... uh ... accident!” Dog
explained.
When John tried to offer Dog some money for
his help, Dog pushed it away saying, “Nah, I don’t have any use for that. Just
being neighborly is all.”
I hadn’t noticed until we were ready to go
that while Dog and John were changing the tire mom had loaded all of our stuff
back into the car.
“If you don’t mind my asking, you don’t seem
the type to belong to a motorcycle gang.” John said to Dog.
“What this old thing?” Dog said talking about
his Hells Angels jacket. “Belongs to a mate a mine. Just holding it for him.”
“You have got a wonderful accent.” Mom said.
I chimed in with, “You’re from Austrilia aren’t you?”
“Right you are lil’
roo.” Dog said giving me a smile and I remember
thinking that he didn’t look so scary when he smiled.
“So what brought you all the way over here?”
Mom asked.
“Had my fill of the Never Never...
uh, sorry, I mean back home.” Dog dropped his head as he continued, “You see, I
had me a matching set of rug rat much like yours but they and their mum died.”
John offered his condolances,
“I’m sorry to hear that.” And mom added, “Oh that’s terrible.”
“Felt like I needed to go walkabout so I came
to see what all the fuss was over here.” Dog said.
“How long have you been in the states?” Mom
asked him.
“Let’s see,” Dog must have been thinking
because it took him a full half minute before he answered, “Must be getting on
to four years now.”
John and mom thanked Dog profusely and try as
they might they couldn’t get Dog to agree to any compensation, not even a meal
on us. After he rode away on his chopper we got back on the road.
I guess I must have fallen asleep or
something because the next thing I remember, mom was saying, “
I sat forward resting my elbows on the
backrest of the front seat and seen the sign that read, ‘Welcome to
“We’re here!” John announced.
“Don’t forget your promise!” I reminded John.
“What promise?” Mom asked.
“He doesn’t want to walk into his
grandmothers wearing a diaper.” John told her.
“Oh
“Yeah but I don’t wet during the day time!” I
protested.
“Sit back and put your belt back on!” She
said sharply while reaching to turn the car radio on.
When we’d gone about another fifteen minutes
I again spoke up but all I said was a whiney, “Joooohhhhhnnnn?”
After a while longer I gave up on them and
quietly slipped my pants off, pulled the diaper down like underwear and then
pulled my pants back up. Of course I’d been wearing a pair of pants that the Doleshires
had given me and without a diaper on they were huge on me. And I’d have to
remember that since I didn’t have a belt on, I’d have to keep hold of my pants
so that they didn’t fall off.
I sat back there feeling a little smug and
proud of myself for pull that off, no pun indented, without getting caught. It
wasn’t until after we arrived that it struck me that I probable should have
attempted to hide the diaper and not leave it lying on the floor of the car.
When we arrived in
“
“What?” I objected. I felt that was uncalled
for.
“
From the second I stepped foot out of the car
I knew I wasn’t going to like living here in Lewiston, Maine because as I
lowered my foot out the door and stepped right into a mud puddle.
“Ah man that’s just great!” I murmured to
myself, “Thanks for the warm and cheerful welcome
~ The End ~
If you have enjoyed this story then please
let me know. You can email me at [email protected]
And you’ll be happy to learn that the sequel
story is already in the works so be sure to look for Alvin Ever After: Alvin in
the Second.