Warning: The following is
evil, illegal, should be banned, and all that other blah, blah, blah.
If reading a
coming of age story of self-discovery about pre-adolescent and adolescent boys
that wet their
beds and wear diapers doesn't tickle your pickle (or if the law in your area
says
that tickle
pickling is illegal) then don't read it.
Write something to suit yourself and many people will like
it;
write something to suit everybody and scarcely anyone will
care for it.
Jesse Stuart
By Danny
After reading about so many sighting reports online and even seeing some on TV, though I am skeptical of anything I see on TV, I’ve decided to set out on a mission to experience one of these encounters for myself. Yea, I know that some, maybe more then some, maybe even more then half, possibly nearly all are built-up elaboration of what people hope, think, or believe they saw. But if even one is real, if even one is based on actual events, doesn’t that mean that maybe, just maybe I have a chance? Doesn’t that mean that if I want it to happen bad enough, strong enough, will it to be, that it can actually happen that I will witness one myself; even if only briefly?
Though I thought I had all the heart, raw guts and determination of a Knight on a Crusade, I was not prepared for the events of the next thirteen days.
I’ve read a lot of stories of teen and preteen diaper sightings that happen in and around the diaper aisles in drug and department stores and since I live close enough to a large super store, close enough that I could ride my bike there, I decided that would be where I would begin my first stakeout.
In my excitement to experience a sighting for myself, I have decided to skip school today; it turned out to be easier then I thought it would be. At dinner last night I asked permission to ride my bike to school today instead of my dad taking me like he did every morning on his way to work. Dad was surprisingly supportive of the idea because he had a big presentation at work in the morning and not having to go by my school meant he would have a few extra minutes to prepare for it. Mom was a little harder to convince as she still thinks of me as six years old. Sometimes I think she will never be able to see the fact that I am 12 now, well I will be in a few days anyway! In the end, she agreed but not without giving me a long speech about safety and making sure I knew to lock my bike up really well! I put up with the speech because I have learned that Mom is big on speeches, I guess it makes her feel good, and afterward I usually get what I wanted.
Dad ended up leaving the house early this morning; Mom was cleaning the breakfast dishes in the sink. With my coat, hat, gloves and backpack on, I kissed her cheek and said, “Bye Mom!”
She said something to me as I raced out the sliding door but I didn’t hear what it was. The air was pretty crisp this morning. It has been like that all month, chilled and frosty in the mornings and almost spring like in the afternoons as long as you don’t mind the still cold wind that seems to come in gusts when you least expect them.
Just in case mom was watching me out the window I made like I was going to school. It meant that I would end up having to back track a couple blocks but I didn’t mind too much. I raced down the hill on my bike crouching down so that less of the cold morning air was hitting me and it also let me go even faster. I passed the Janson house with a blur and didn’t even hear Buster, their dog, bark. I’m sure I looked like a streak of blue and green on the frosty air.
At the bottom of the hill where our street dead-ends into Marshall Ave, I normally would have turned right to ride to school but instead I turned left without slowing down much at all. I felt like a guided missile cutting through the crystallized air as I whipped around the corner. I went two blocks down Marshall still at full speed and peddling for all I was worth and whipped left around another corner to start up Pocono Streets’ hill. I wanted to keep up as much speed as possible so that I could get as far up the hill as I could before I would have to jump off and walk my bike up the rest of the way.
I made it past six houses before I had to jump off and start pushing my bike. I remember thinking that it was the furthest I had ever made it up Pocono hill before and I felt pretty big about it.
It took me a few minutes or so to reach the halfway point up the hill to where I had to turn and go through the community sports park. It was early enough that I only saw two people jogging around the running track and they were far enough away that if they knew me, they probably would not recognize me. But I still peddled for all I was worth just to give anyone a more difficult time at recognizing me.
Most people that bike through the park stay on the bike path but I wanted to get through the park as fast as possible so I was cutting a straight line through the soccer fields that were blanked in glimmering frosted blades of grass that seemed to shatter as my wheels crushed them. The ball diamonds, which are soft and difficult to ride a bike over in the spring and summer, were hard as rock and I sailed over each one with no sand kicking up from my tires at all.
Once I reached Main Street I had to skid to a stop, which was really fun on the frozen grass. Main is a difficult street to cross even at the lights. I had to wait a long time. I kept my face down so that if someone saw me they would have a hard time distinguishing me from any other kid. It seemed like I had to wait forever for the light to finally change and I walked my bike across as fast as I could without actually running.
Once I was on the other side of Main Street I was much nearer to my destination and the excitement that I was feeling gave my legs strength to power me to my destination. I jumped back on my bike and peddled my heart out across the Subway and Radio Shack parking lots and cut through the Drive-Thru of the Dollar Tree bank to reach the Wal-Mart Super Center.
After stowing my bike in the bike rack next to the front entrance and securely locking it, I headed in to the store. I knew they would not let me take my backpack into the store with me so I stopped at the service desk and asked if I could leave it with them while I shopped. The lady at the desk was very nice and put it behind the counter after I stuffed my hat and gloves into it and she gave me a slip of paper with a matching number to the little yellow sticker she put on my backpack.
I knew exactly where the diaper aisle was; I had gone to that isle many times before with my mother to get a package of Goodnites for myself. I guess I have not said yet that I am a bed wetter and always have been. I wear Goodnites to bed to keep from waking up with soaked sheets. Most of the time they work just fine but there have been times when I’ve wet more than a single Goodnite can hold and it has leaked and got my pajamas and sheets wet. I share a room with my younger half-brother every other weekend and all during the summer. He doesn’t wet the bed and he can make me feel pretty humiliated sometimes. He is only eleven months younger then me and he is always teasing me about wetting at night. Aside from him teasing me, I kind of like wetting the bed. No that is not true actually; I really do like wetting the bed and I’ve even purposefully wet my bed a few times when I’ve woke up and found out I had a dry night. I don’t have them very often but when I do, I just lay myself back down to wet my Goodnite and then I get up. I don’t normally take off my wet Goodnite until after breakfast unless I am worried about it leaking. No one ever says anything about it in my family. I guess they all know and just ignore it. When my half-brother is here I never wear it around the house. I mean why give him more chances to mess with me?
Our Wal-Mart is open 24 hours a day and only closes on Christmas Eve, which is why I was able to get in to it so early today. The store was not very busy that early but I had planned on spending the entire day at the store if I had to, well up to 3:30 p.m. when my school normally lets out.
I made my way to the baby department and I was surprised to find two ladies shopping in there already. I strolled past the diapers and took a quick mental picture of where the Goodnites and larger diapers were before continuing on to the little girls’ department, which is right next to the baby department. I walked around a while, scouting out the best place to hide and where I had a clear view of the diaper aisle. I found a rack of girls’ sun dresses that was perfect. I made sure no one was watching me and climbed into the middle of the rack and sat myself down on the two cross members. The dresses hid me quite well from anyone walking by and as long as no one looked down inside the middle or seen me peeking through the dresses they would never know I was in there.
I sat in my hideout for what I guessed was at least an hour before I saw the first person enter the diaper aisle but I was disappointed when they didn’t even stop to look and just meandered right on through.
The longer I sat there the more uncomfortable I got as the two metal cross pieces I was sitting on were making my legs and bottom quite sore and I was also feeling like I really needed to pee.
Now, getting out of that hiding place was not something I had thought about previously. I was not sure how to tell if anyone was looking and try as much as I could, I could not see in every direction to be sure the coast was clear. In the end I finally decided to just throw caution to the wind and make a break for it! Luck was on my side and I was able to make my way out and down to the layaway department to use the bathroom. I hate it when the bathrooms are located next to the layaway department in stores. I always feel like everyone is watching me go in and come out, but again, luck was with me because not even a store employee was within sight. I was able to go in, relieve my bladder and then make my way back out again without being seen.
When I got back to the little girls’ department there was a really fat lady shopping so I just continued on my way as if I knew where I was going. I went back down the diaper aisle, everything looked to still be in its place so I continued on through the baby clothes and over into the little boys’ clothes. That is when my luck ran out.
Just as I was passing the shelves of boys’ jeans I ran smack into a sales lady and she remembered me from earlier in the week when my mom had me here trying on clothes. She smiled and said hi and asked why I was not in school. I had to think fast and I said that I had a dentist appointment later and that my mom had just kept me home from school for the whole day. Then she asked if my mom was with me and I stupidly said yes but I quickly recovered and said that she was over getting groceries. That seemed to satisfy her and I made a quick retreat away from her view.
I decided to go back to see if I was able to get into my hiding place again but someone else was now shopping in that area and was looking at the sun dresses as well. I was feeling a bit like everyone was watching me though I know I was just panicking a bit. Instead I decided to go over to the toy department for a while and just check back later.
Now, Wal-Mart has this most excellent skateboard that I have been drooling over since before Christmas! It was the one thing I wanted for Christmas more then anything else but I didn’t get it. My parents keep telling me that it costs too much and I am just going to end up scratching it all up the first day I get it. Well, yea, of course I am going to scratch it up, that is what they are for! I mean, how am I supposed to grind without scratching up the bottom? But that has not stopped me from begging them for it every chance I get. So I made my way to the middle of the store where the toy department is.
Man, the board is still so awesome and I would look so cool on it, but I guess at $139 bucks, all I am going to get to do is dream about it!
I ogled the board for a few minutes, spinning the wheels of each board and listening to that great whine of the ball bearings! I guess I was so into my dream state that I didn’t notice right away that someone had come into the aisle sometime after I did.
“That’s pretty cool huh?”
I must have jumped ten feet in the air!
“Whoa!” A pail blonde boy to my left laughed, “Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you!” he said, smiling wide.
Re-gathering my composure, “Uh, you didn’t scare me.”
He smiled sheepishly at me.
“Okay maybe a little.” I gave in and smiled back.
He looked back at the boards.
“You got one?” I asked.
“Na, my mom and dad would never let me have one,” he said.
“Why not?” I asked.
“They think I would hurt or kill myself.” He spun one of the wheels as he spoke, “They won’t even let me ride a bike, either.”
“Wow!” was all I said.
“Yea, but they don’t know that my friends let me ride their boards all the time when my mom and dad can’t see me,” he continued. “I even learned to ride a bike, thanks to my one friend’s dad.”
“Why won’t your mom and dad let you ride a bike or skateboard? I mean, sure, I get scraped and bruised, but I’ve never broke anything and I don’t know of anyone from my school that has broke any bones, either,” I said.
“I have… they just wont.” He changed what he was going to say midway and I could tell from the look in his face that he didn’t want to talk about it so I dropped the subject.
“I better go find my mom, bye,” he said.
“Okay, bye,” I said.
I didn’t really think much more about that kid until later.
After I felt that I had sufficiently drooled over the skateboards I made my way back to the little girls’ department and sure enough, now there were several ladies in there shopping. I walked right past them and went down the diaper aisle again but this time I noticed that two packages of Goodnites size medium were missing. My heart jumped in my chest.
I spun around to see if I could spot the packages in anyone’s shopping carts but I didn’t. I tried to walk fast without drawing attention to myself. I went back to the little girls’ clothes to check the women’s shopping carts from a distance, no Goodnites.
I race-walked over to the little boys clothes, there were a couple women shopping there too, but no Goodnites.
No longer worried that someone might recognize me, I headed for the main aisle ways. The store was still not as busy as it gets in the afternoons but there were still quite a few people shopping. I spied into each cart as I walked past them. I made my way toward the front of the store on the hunch that maybe whoever grabbed those Goodnites might be in one of the checkout lines. There were only two cashiers on duty that early in the day and no one in either line had any diapers or Goodnites that I could see. I was consciously aware that I was not being as covert as I should have been but my excitement had taken over control from my rational thinking and I just had to find out who took those Goodnites!
I was at the far end of the checkout lanes now and close to the exit doors as well as electronics area. I feigned as though I was checking out some of the DVDs but I was really watching the two open lanes from a distance for anyone entering them. Man, my heart was thumping like Indian war drums and I am sure I looked just like a kid high on sugar!
I must have been standing at the DVDs for maybe ten minutes, I really don’t know, when I saw that same blonde boy I had seen in the toy area get in line with what I guessed was his mom. He was bouncing on his tiptoes begging her to let him have something but I could not tell what he wanted from where I was across the store and that is when I spied the dark blue package of Goodnites in his mom’s cart.
“Oh my gawd! How could I have missed it?” I said to myself.
I began walking toward the boy and his mom, I was focused on the boy, looking right at him he had his back to me, his mom was looking at the tabloids. Were his pants a bit bulkier then they normally should be? Was I just imagining it? Maybe they aren’t for him; maybe but... I was now no more then twenty-feet from him, now fifteen-feet, twelve-feet, ten...
I felt a hand take hold of my shoulder, gripping hard and stopping me in my tracks.
“Simon David Leonard Junior! Why aren’t you in school, young man?”
There was no time for my brain to identify the voice as the hand on my shoulder gave me a violet tug and spun me around so fast I nearly fell had the hand not held me from doing so. Standing there looking like absolute evil was my Aunt Catharine, my mom’s older, fatter and oh so much uglier sister! She had her face so close to mine I could see her nostrils flaring and smell the stench of her booze and bad cheese on her breath! She was yelling so loudly that everyone in the store stopped and was staring at us. As she shouted all three of her chins shook violently. She wrapped her man-size left hand around my right upper arm so tightly that I started to cry from the pain. I was dancing on the tips of my shoes trying to keep up with her as she half-dragged, half-carried me out of the store like I was a little child and she continued to berate me in front of all the shoppers and store employees without any regard for them and she continued the entire way out to her old faded olive green Plymouth Fury where she literally picked me up and threw me into the back seat and buckled me in.
Terror had replaced all other feelings and thoughts as I heard her say something about taking me home. The car groaned under her weight as she settled into the drivers seen never stopping it seemed to take a breath while she carried on spouting her evil words toward the windshield. As we were pulling out of the parking place I saw my bike still chained up in front of the store.
I shouted through my sobs, “MY BIKE!”
The car stopped, backing up with a jolt as if it hit a brick wall.
Slamming the gear shifter into park, she threw herself back out the door and rounded back to my door where she jerked it open.
“KEY!” she spat.
I fumbled feebly for the key in my pocket for a moment before locating it. She snatched it from my hand at the moment her eye caught sight of it.
Storming, she made her way over to my bike, unchained it from the bike rake and with one arm lifted it from the ground.
I remember thinking how someone so very obese could be so incredibly strong, too.
Within a moment she had my bike stowed in the trunk and was back behind the wheel again spouting off her anger with me.
Less then five minutes later I was standing in the kitchen of my own home, my aunt standing next to the breakfast table looking righteously indignant while my mother’s anger erupted only inches from my face.
After an unknown number of minutes of uncontrolled furry my mom sent me to my room, as I left the kitchen I heard my aunt say, “You should beat that boy senseless!”
I spent several minutes setting on the side of my bed, sobbing and trying to regain control of myself before my bedroom door flew open and my mom announced that I was going to school and she was talking me!
That was the moment I remembered my schoolbooks were in my backpack and my backpack was still behind the service counter at Wal-Mart.
I swallowed hard against the enormous knot in my throat, “My books are still at Wal-Mart.”
I realized instantly that this was not what she wanted to hear. I had not thought it possible for her face to turn any darker a shade of red but it did. Through clenched teeth she shrieked, “You – will – go – and – get – them – then! Go – get – in – the – van!”
I raced past her, keeping my backside purposefully pointed away from her; however, that didn’t stop her from taking a swing that only just missed my left ear and connected smartly with my cheek. This started the tears flowing again as I ran down the hallway with her hot on my heels.
After all of that I never would have thought I could feel more humiliated but I was wrong. Having to go back into Wal-Mart to retrieve my backpack and having the entire store’s employees see me being escorted by my mom who had a hold of my hand like I was a toddler was devastatingly humiliating.
After being dropped off at school and escorted to the office where I got another chewing out by my mom in front of the vice principal and two other office personnel, I was escorted to my Social Studies class by my mom and the vice principal who, in front of my whole class told my teacher what I had done that morning with me no longer in tears but obvious to all that I had been crying.
When finally mom and the vice principal had left and things settled down, I had time to calm down and reflect. I realized that things could have been much worse then what they were. I was so glad that my real reasons for skipping school were not discovered but I was equally disappointed that what could possibly have been my one and only shot at seeing an older kid in diapers or Goodnites was snatched away from me.
The rest of the school day went pretty much as you might expect. Some students teased me about the way I had arrived, others thought I was some kind of super kid having nearly gotten away with skipping school, and then there was BJ, my only real friend. BJ was not mad that I skipped school, and he wasn’t mad that I got caught, he was just mad because I skipped school without him!
After I told him all the gruesome details, of course I built it up a bit to make it sound as though my capture and torture was some grand adventure, he seemed a bit less upset about not getting to cut classes and a bit more relieved he had not had to face the firing squad as I had.
After school my dad was setting out front to pick me up just like every other day, except he didn’t have a happy look on his face. As I shuffled my way to the car I knew mom had called him at work and told him everything; I knew I was in for it... again. I knew that look in dad’s eyes, I knew I was going to be getting it big time when we got home and that lump reappeared in my throat. It was all I could do to keep from breaking down into tears again as I climbed into the backseat and buckled myself in.
There was not a word spoken all the way home. When we reached the house, I went straight to my room without being told. I heard dad in the kitchen talking to mom but I could not make out for myself what they were saying.
While I stood in the middle of my room petrified with fear, the thoughts of what sort of punishment I was going to get flashed before me like violent movie scenes.
“Twelve, I’m almost twelve, he wouldn’t spank me would he?” I remember thinking to myself.
I was brought back to the present when I heard my dad shout a curse so loud I thought for a brief moment that he was in my room. It shocked me, I had never heard him so much as us a slang word before let alone a curse word. My body began to shake uncontrollably with fear. Within minutes I knew he would be coming in my room to kill me and no amount of begging, pleading or apologies would stay my execution.
Tears were rolling down my face, my chest heaved with each sob. Somewhere inside of me a message was sent to my feet to move and they responded by taking me over to my desk where I had set my backpack of books and homework.
Maybe it was out of some sense of impending doom that I found myself setting at my desk and beginning my homework. Every day of my young life it has been a daily ritual for my parents to yell, bribe or threaten to get me to actually set down and do my homework but for some reason I sat down at my desk and started working. Every few minutes I would hear one of my parents raise their voice in anger. I had never heard them argue so long before and that scared me even more, which pushed me to work harder and faster on my homework.
Not too long afterward all of my schoolwork was done which surprised even me. The rest of the house was quiet; I don’t know when they stopped yelling, either. Tears were still trickling down my face whenever my mind would allow my imagination to run free but my sobs had eased. After putting all my things back in my backpack, I placed it by my bedroom door just like every other evening. I then took off my school uniform, hung it all in the closet nicely, another thing that always took a generous amount of persuasion on my parents part to get me to do. I put on my brown corduroy pants, the thickest pants I owned and my superman sweatshirt. I sat on the edge of my bed, tear-stained face beat red, and waited for the inevitable.
The house was quiet, very quiet. I didn’t hear anything form either of them, no smells wafted down the hallway from the kitchen and no TV sounds from the living room. The silence was worse than them yelling. At least with them yelling I knew what was happening and where in the house they were. I’ve no idea how long I sat there on the end of my bed with my bottom clenched in anticipation of the swats that were to come. In the end, my dad never came in my room, not a single word or noise was made all evening. Sometime around five or was it six I must have fallen asleep and I awoke the following morning laying on my bed, still fully dressed.
I sat up on my elbows and looked over at my alarm clock glowing its ghostly red glow from my desk, it read 4:37. Almost two and a half hours before I had to get up for school again. My stomach gave out a wicked growl and I realized I had gone to sleep without supper and they never came and got me, either.
I looked down at my pants and sure enough, they were totally soaked as was my sweatshirt and the bedspread under me. I closed my eyes for a moment to lock the picture in my mind before getting up, pulling my wet clothes off down to my yellow stained underwear and my socks. I put my wet pants and shirt into my laundry basket in the closet and after retrieving my slippers from under the bed I decided to venture out of my room still clad in my wet underwear. It wasn’t uncommon for me to walk around the house in clean underwear or in a Goodnite wet or dry but despite the previous events I still got a trill that stirred something just below my belly button to walk through the house in just my wet underwear.
A nightlight in the hallway cast ghastly shadows that quicken my core. Have you ever noticed the weird noises a house makes late at night? I’ve often wondered why we never hear those sounds during the day.
The living room was bathed in the blue glow of the cable box clock setting on top the TV. In the dim blue glow I made out what could only be my dad asleep on the couch with his back to the room. I can only assume that after their argument, either he chose to sleep on the couch or mom made him whichever way, I knew it was my fault.
Quietly, I crept through the room as I made my way to the kitchen, which was gently lit up by another nightlight by the sink. I didn’t want to open the refrigerator for fear that the light from inside it might wake up dad so I went to the pantry closet and got a package of Pop Tarts. I couldn’t see what flavor they were in the dark, but I also didn’t much care. I would rather eat anything there in the dark then to risk waking up my dad. I was also afraid the crinkling of the foil wrapper as I opened the Pop Tarts might wake him as well, so I decided to take them to my room and eat them there. I knew I was breaking one of my mom’s biggest rules, ‘No food out of the kitchen or dining room ever!’, but it was a rule that I felt, at the moment, was less important then waking the sleeping giant on the couch.
Once back in the solitude of my bedroom I kicked off my slippers, stripped off my wet underwear so that I was completely naked, got a Goodnite from my top dresser drawer and put it on. It felt snug and comfortable against my moist skin. I took the pillow from my bed and blanket that was folded over the foot of the bed and slipped into the bottom of my closet with my Pop Tart.
The bottom of my closet has been sort of like my own little secret fort for a few years now. The carpet and padding on the floor are really soft and squishy. I love the feeling of it against my bare legs. I’ve spent many afternoons and nights setting in the closet with a flashlight and a notebook or a teen baby story that I had printed off the Internet to read while I was alone. Of course if mom and dad knew that I was reading that kind of stuff they would have me committed to some wackotarium.
So in these wee hours of the morning I am now setting here in the bottom of my closet, eating wild berry flavored Pop Tarts, wrapped in a nice soft blanket resting against my pillow with a now wet Goodnite on and writing all of this days events down so that I don’t forget anything.
I’m not crying anymore, and I don’t know what is going to happen to me when mom and dad wake up. The last time they had a fight where dad ended up on the couch, neither of them talked to each other for several days before they finally made up. I don’t even remember what that one was about but it was around the end of last spring, I think.
The only time I can remember a worse fight between them was when mom found out that dad had another child by another woman. That child was my half-brother. Dad started having an affair with this woman while mom was pregnant with me and it ended during my seventh birthday party when the woman came over drunk and was spouting off things about my dad. As it turned out, she didn’t know my dad was married to my mom and when she and my mom found out it was like World War I and II all over again in our backyard. All my friends ran from my party in fear, which is why to this day I have only one real friend, and that is because his family didn’t live here then.
I’ve just peeked out the closet door at the clock and it is about twenty minutes to seven, which means it is almost time for my alarm to wake me up for school. I am going to go ahead and go take a shower now and then get ready for school. Maybe if I don’t give them any reason to yell at me this morning . . . well who knows.