Chapter 5 – On the Unlikeliness of Chance Encounters in a Restroom
The week went quickly and Friday finally rolled around. Mom had been talking all week about her date this Friday. One of her co-workers has set her up with a recently widowed gentleman who lived in the area. They had gone out a few times the month before her Oregon trip and Mom seemed to have enjoyed herself each time immensely. They had each wanted the other to meet their children but Moms Oregon trip had forced them to push back their plans to this Friday..
Mom had cooked a bunch of food the night before so she could have an easier time with dinner after work. Even with planning ahead we were both rushing to get things done before 6:30. I was helping to set the table when the doorbell rang.
“I’ll get it!” Mom said almost sprinting for the front door.
A moment latter I heard her say “Good evening Walt! Why those are lovely flowers, please come in, come in.”
The living room was out of sight but I heard the sounds of people coming in the door closing behind them.
“And this handsome young man must be Quentin!” Mom gushed in her best “I’m-talking-to-little-kid-but-pretending-they’re-a-grownup” voice.
A small jolt of recognition at the name caused me to fumble a bit. I dropped one of the glasses of water I was setting out, soaking a greater part of the table and myself in the process.
“Come on in here and meet son my Todd, he’s helping me set the table and get dinner ready,” Mom said as she ushered them into the dining room.
As my luck would have it, and my worst fears, it was THAT Quentin.
“Walt this is my son Todd, Todd this is Walt and this is his son Quentin.” Mom said making the introductions.
I turned around to shake hands and realized they were all staring at the wet spot on my khakis.
“I um spilled a glass of water, I need to clean it up.” I managed to say. I just knew they both thought I wet my pants and was just trying to cover it up by spilling water on the table. Why did my explanation sound so lame?
Mom was already assessing the situation and getting a handful of paper towels.
Walt and Mom both helped to blot the water off the table and when we had gotten the place setting dry I shook hands with Walt and Quentin. I notice a look of recognition from them both which confirmed they remembered me as well as I remembered them.
“Dad, he wet his pants,” Quentin told Walt.
“No he just spilled some water on them, now hush.” Walt told Quentin a hint of “drop it” in the edge of his voice.
“He did, too. He wears diapers, I saw...” Quentin continued.
“Quentin, Shush and drop it right now” Walt countered with enough strength that Quentin stopped mid sentence.
I just stood there dumbfounded, awkward and embarrassed.
“Well, why don’t you go put some dry pants on Todd” Mom instructed taking the situation in stride. I took the opportunity and bolted for my room. I changed into some dry clothes, first pulling on a fresh pair of boxer shorts and some blue jeans. I tossed my damp khakis and underwear in my hamper, all while I tried to work myself up enough to return to the kitchen.
“That must have been my sister and her boys” Mom was finishing as I walked back into the room. I knew then EXACTLY what the topic of conversation had been.
Quentin looked at me sheepishly and told me that he was“ sorry for saying stuff about my diapers.”
“It’s okay” I managed, feeling my embarrassment make a comeback at Quentin’s knowledge of my diapers.
Conversation about my diapers ended for a few hours at that point. We had a great dinner, Mom was an excellent cook and tonight’s pot roast was no exception. Turns out that Walt was a photographer, he made most of his money doing weddings and the like, however his passion was for coffee table books and he was working on one as a side project. His current assignment was taking photos of rural America for just such an anthology.
Quentin was a voracious eater for a child his age; he stuffed everything down with an efficiency that was startling. Not a picky eater, that one. So it was between mouthfuls of roast and vegetables that he explained to us that he was going into the first grade this fall a fact to which he and his dad was both very proud. I guess this was Quentin’s way of saying he was no longer in kindergarten. I found myself smiling. I mean, I wanted to resent his knowledge about my diapers, I really did, but I found myself liking him despite my best efforts to the contrary.
Once everyone was stuffed Mom cleared the table of the remaining pieces of roast and the nearly empty bowls that had held okra, potatoes and creamed corn. She went to the fridge and a moment latter returned with a large covered dish.
“Now I know you saved room for my banana pudding?” Mom asked sweetly as she lifted the lid off the dish.
I handed dessert bowls around the table along with spoons. “Mommas Banana Pudding won state fair three different years,” I bragged.
“Now Todd, let’s not brag, it’s unseemly,” Mom said with a slight pause before continuing in the same lecture voice “it is damn good pudding, though.” And with that last quip she couldn’t quite hold her composure and started laughing.
After dinner I was told to take Quentin to the living room to watch some TV or play some video games so Mom and Walt could talk and drink coffee. Now our living room was not the fancy kind of living room, it was just the kind you lived in. I was small and cozy with enough room for our TV and a couch. Now this couch is worth describing because it was a study in contrast. It was quite possible the most comfortable couch I had ever seen in all of my almost 15 years of life and as if to somehow compensate for its comfort it was also the ugliest. I actually think I have seen this same couch on uglyasschairs.com
Quentin wanted to watch Sponge Bob, which wouldn’t have been my first choice, but he was company and I didn’t mind all that much. Now don’t get me wrong, I did like some of the cartoons on Nick even though most kids my age didn’t, I am especially fond of Invader Zim, however Sponge Bob was just a bit too strange for my taste. For cartoons, I liked Cartoon Network even more, but for the really good stuff I had to stay up late.
“Where is the bathroom?” Quentin asked as soon as sponge bob went off.
I showed him where the bathroom was and after turning on the light for him I stopped off in my room. A few minutes later Quentin walked into my room and started looking around at all the books on my shelves, and the models I had on top of the shelves. He spotted my Gameboy Advanced on my desk and asked if he could play with it. I said sure and handed him the Gameboy and a small bag with all of its cartridges. Excited, he ran from my room back to the living room to play.
I flicked off my light and headed back down the hall to the kitchen for a drink. Mom and Walt were still talking at the table. They were both laughing about something and I was very happy to see mom with someone and having such a good time.
“Hey kiddo, where’s Quentin?” Mom asked as I walked by
“He’s in there playing with my Gameboy,” I said, pointing to the living room.
“Oh well, you’ve made a friend then if you have video games” Walt said back with a chuckle.
I went ahead and grabbed a soda for Quentin and one for me, too, and headed back to the living room. I gave Quentin the can of Coke which he took offering me a mumbled thanks, so intent was he on the game. I snatched the remote from the couch and started looking for something to watch.
I found some old scary movie from the 70’s, which was cornier and cheesy than scary, gawd, at the sound effects they used back then. The movie got real slow about halfway through and it was starting to get kind of boring and I needed to go to the bathroom anyways. I had already waited too long and had to walk all clinched up. For the life of me I wonder why I hold my pee so long sometimes, it’s not like I am particularly good at holding it anyways.
Once I was done and I got back to the living room I noticed Quentin had fallen asleep with my Gameboy still in one hand and the unopened coke still beside him on the table. I turned the TV off and then gingerly removed my Gameboy from the boys grip. I retrieved the coke to return it to the fridge.
As I put the Coke away I told mom and Walt about Quentin’s nap and then explained that I was going to go to my room to read for a bit, too.
“I can help you get ready for bed if you like” Mom offered.
I blushed knowing Walt must have guessed what she was offering to help with and my pride just wouldn’t let me agree “I’m not even sleepy – I’ll get ready for bed later. You two just talk and have fun”
Well, it wasn’t twenty minutes later until I myself had dozed off. I never went to sleep before eleven especially on a Friday night. I woke up to mom shaking my shoulder.
“Todd honey, wake up, you can’t go to sleep like that.” She said taking the book from me and setting it on my night table. I looked to the clock and it was 11:30.
“Walt?” I asked her.
“He told me to tell you good night and not to wake you, they left maybe five minutes ago”
“Ohh,” I mumbled sleepily.
Her hands found my belt and started to open my jeans where just the beginning of a wet spot was forming.
“Well it looks like I got here in the nick of time or you’d be soaked through” She said as she pulled off my pants and underwear.
The cold air down there drove the last bit of sleepiness away and left me awake and embarrassed. I wasn’t embarrassed per se about being naked in front of my Mom, I should be probably, but wet enough and you get used to it. And it’s not that I’m overly sensitive about wetting my bed, at least not around Mom. I’ve wet for a couple of years now, so I’m used to it all. Yet it just seems so much worse when I wet and I am still wearing daytime clothes. I’m used to wet shorts or PJ’s but certainly not wet jeans and any of my nice boxers. I had been sleeping in PJ’s without underwear so what I wore to school wouldn’t be discolored, because even with bleach some of my underwear had started to get pee stains in them and I didn’t want anyone noticing that in the locker room.
I stood up for a moment and took off my shirt while mom put down the changing pad for me. Mom rubbed in oil and powder as normal and then slid a diaper up under me. She gave me some plastic pants and some PJ shorts to pull on. She offered a shirt but I elected to skip it, as it was a muggy night.
“Now you go brush your teeth,” She told me as she put the changing pad back between my bed and nightstand.
As I walked to the bathroom the house seemed terribly quiet and with each step I heard the rustle of my diaper. Crackle-crackle-crackle as I walked. Even while brushing my teeth I thought I could hear a small rustle from my diaper in response to my brushing. When I was done with my teeth, I snuck to the kitchen to see if I could grab a quick snack undetected. I’m not supposed to eat anything after I brush my teeth but I sometimes manage to get away with it if Mom has her attention elsewhere.
No such luck, Mom was in the kitchen cleaning up from this evening. I started to turn around and head back toward my room when mom called out “I hear Mr. Crinkle Pants”
I chuckled despite getting busted.
“You were going to get a snack, weren’t you?” she accused.
I am generally of the opinion that the truthfulness was the best option and so with little hesitation I agreed that yes I was coming to pilfer a snack from the fridge.
“Now Todd, you know the rule about eating after you have brushed your teeth. Or at least a reasonable person would assume you ought to know after almost 15 years of living under this roof”
“Yes Ma’am.” I replied trying to sound sincere.
“Well I suppose I can make an exception, just this once,” Mom said as she opened the freezer and pulled down a half gallon of ice cream.
Within a few minutes I was sitting across the table from her each of us with a sundae and small side of her banana pudding.
“So what did you think of Walt?” Mom asked
I thought Walt was super nice, he didn’t appear outwardly bothered by my diapers and Quentin seemed like a happy enough kid. My instincts told me Walt was a good guy and would be good for Mom. However all I managed around mouthfuls of ice cream was to tell her “He seems nice to me.”
“Tomorrow he asked if we wanted to drive into Birmingham for the fair, he had been promising Quentin to take him for a while now and it reminded me of how quick you’re growing up.” Mom paused to take a bite before finishing “and well how we just don’t get to do fun stuff together much anymore, especially since I took this new job”
“Sounds like fun to me,” I admitted, I loved fairs and carnivals.
“We have to hold to these moments as long as we can, Todd. You’ll be driving in a year or so and then you’ll go off to college and then you will have a family of your own, move to the city and probably forget all about your mother back here in Simonsville.”
“I won’t forget about you, I promise, unless I become rich”
We both laughed at that, just enjoying the moment.
I had a feeling Mom wanted to talk about something else and in a few minutes when we both were just about done with our ice cream she asked “So you met Walt last weekend in Jerson?”
I knew this was really Mom’s subtle way of trying to allow me to explain why I was changing into a diaper during the day. I had thought about this a while ago before dozing off. I considered telling her the partial truth that Rob and Rick both wore pull-ups on car trips and I was wearing one, too, so they wouldn’t feel bad. But then I would have to explain why I wet my pull up and had to change. I also thought of telling her we had woken up late and went straight from bed to the car, but that was obviously not true. I had even considered the full truth, just flat out telling her that I liked diapers and felt like wearing one. However, I was having trouble even admitting that to myself much less someone else.
In the end though honesty won out, it must have been the sugar, because before I knew it I told her what I didn’t think I had the courage to even say to myself. I told her that I had just decided to wear diapers that day since we were traveling so much, that my cousins did it too and it sounded like FUN to me.
“I hope it didn’t embarrass you to hear the story from Walt.” I finished.
“Oh honey, no, that doesn’t embarrass me. Now I don’t rightly care what you wear under your pants as long as it makes you happy. I just didn’t know if that was something you wanted or if you were just trying to fit in with your cousins.”
Honesty again, I was on a roll “Yeah I liked it, I know it’s weird and all but I just do”
“Well you just wear them whenever you want, they’re your underpants after all.”
I put my bowl in the dishwasher and gave Mom a goodnight kiss and a strong hug before I went back to my room.
“Night Mom”
“Night Sweetie”