I think I am getting closer to the end. Maybe five more chapters or seven and then I am through with this story. I have a good story idea in mine babychris helped me with and it’s much better than the other sad depressing ideas I had.
Chapter 17
Mom came out of the store. She got in on the passenger side.
“What took you so long? Did you have to poop?” I asked.
Mom didn’t answer.
“Did you go poopy?” I asked again.
“Natalie, you do not ask people about their bodily function,” she said.
“But you took so long in there,” I said. “And you ask me if I pooped in mine.”
“She’s right,” said Dad. “How is asking someone if they went poopy in the toilet any different than asking her if she pooped her nappy?”
“No I didn’t go poopy,” said Mom.
“Then what took you so long?” I asked.
“I was finding out why your diapers haven’t come yet. There was a back order and they should be there sometime next week.”
Mom turned the car on and we headed to the police station. Dad put down his window.
“What are you doing?” Mom asked.
“It stinks in here. I’m not smelling shit on the rest of the way there.”
“She doesn’t change right after she soils herself so get used to it,” said Mom.
“Man this is what she does now? Stays in her soiled nappy while I am at work?”
“If she wants to get an infection, her choice,” said Mom.
“God, she is almost sixteen and she still can’t even handle her own medical condition?” Dad asked.
“I don’t like cleaning it up,” I said.
“That is just gross. You like sitting in it?” Dad asked as Mom said “I didn’t handle my nighttime problem so my mother always put them on me and then you and Elizabeth. You cleaned me up too remember?”
“I’m used to it,” I said.
“That’s different,” Dad told Mom. “I did it because I love you and we’re together and married and this is our daughter, I can’t do to her what I did to you. Then the rest of us have to smell it Natalie and how considerate is that? Think about other people. You’re not the only one living in the house. Do we all need to smell it?”
“You get used to it. We have smelled it over the years I can’t believe you’re making a big fuss about it,” said Mom.
“Well she had the chance to change but would rather wait till she got home and now I find out she stays in it. Now I understand more why Kelly would want her own room,” said Dad. “I will reconsider.”
“Then where will Brian sleep if he moves back?” Mom asked.
“Then we will figure that out when the time comes,” said Dad. “If she wants to be lazy, she can do it in her own room and if she wants to come out, she will have to change. I will not smell it when I come home. That’s the last thing I need.”
When we arrived at the police department, I waited in the car as Mom and Dad went inside. I looked at my Bond trivia cards. I am not sure how long they were in there for. My diaper felt squishy from the poop and I had wet it too so it felt squishier. I got my new diapers out of the bag and looked at the pack. The outside was purple and white and so was the picture of the diaper. I looked at one of the sample packs and it looked thick. Luckily I was not in school anymore so I wouldn’t have to worry about the huge bulge. They may be great for nighttime use. I wonder how other incontinent people wear very thick diapers. I sure don’t see anyone wearing one. It’s only obvious on old people because the bulge gives it away. Why does it always have to be a senior wearing them? I opened the pack of diapers and pulled one out. They were purple with lines on them and it had Molicare written all over the tabs. There were leak guards in the diaper and it was very thick. There were only fourteen in the pack instead of sixteen. So only two diapers short. I sniffed the diaper and it smelled like a diaper. I wish diapers would have a scent like baby diapers do and I also wished they had prints on them. They are so boring when they are plain. At least they make them a different color and have lines on them. I still wish they put something on them like they do with underwear. Now I have diapers that are purple with lines on them instead of plain pink with yellow lines that changes color when I’m wet or totally disappears if I’m very wet. What is the point in a wetness indicator if it’s totally obvious the diaper is wet? Mom guesses some people are too stupid to tell if a diaper is wet so they have a line on it to tell them. I asked her how come baby diapers don’t have them and she said that was a very good question, she doesn’t know either. Maybe because people usually stick their fingers in the kid’s diaper to see if it’s wet. I asked her why can’t people do that to their own diapers and she said she didn’t know. She isn’t sure why either why they have wetness indicators on them but maybe people don’t want to stick their fingers in someone’s diaper they are taking care of. But at least it decorates the diaper a little bit. I think it would totally be cool if pictures appear on diapers when they’re wet just to make it more fun. But mom told me the companies would probably start getting sued because people would then be staying in them for too long and getting rashes and sores. Stupid people have to ruin it for everyone. They ought to make a law about suing. Dad told me one time he is amazed how sue happy America is it makes him want to move back to England but he tried that once when Brian was a baby and it didn’t work out so they moved back. I wished it did work out because then I would have been born there and be living my life there and I wouldn’t have ended up in diapers unless the same thing happened over there like it did here. When I was over there, everyone there talked funny and I felt so much better about myself. My Dad has an English accent too so that is probably where I got mine from so I talk funny. But even though I do say our words right, I still talk funny and get asked where I am from. I like to imagine what my life would be like if we lived there and I grew up there. I used to get teased about how I talked and kids would give me a hard time about it. I also remember being asked what is wrong with my speech and even back then I would rarely get asked where I am from and I never knew how to answer it. Do I say “home” or “California” where I was born, or “here” or do I say “England” where my dad is from or say the name of my neighborhood? So I either ignored the question or gave a random answer. But of course some kids didn’t care where I was from because they still made fun of how I spoke even though they would accuse me being from Mexico. Now they seem to have outgrown it and have moved onto other things to give me a hard time about. What doesn’t even make sense is some of them were in speech therapy and they still made fun of how I talked. But yet no one made fun of them for how they spoke or said certain words. See, I am always being picked on and treated different. Now I am not in it anymore. Why try and fix my accent if people talk different around the world? If someone moved here from England, would they need speech therapy to fix their accent so they speak American? What if someone moved here from New York, shall they get speech therapy now so they speak like the Pacific Northwest?
I was daydreaming about my life in London when Mom and Dad came back. They got in and Dad was talking about something. Then he said “That cat box better be cleaned when we get back.”
Dad picked up his cell phone again and called home. “Hey this is Dad calling again; I want to know if you cleaned the cat box yet. Hello, pick up the phone if you are hearing this. Oh hey Matthew did the cat box get cleaned yet…. Can you check?” There was a pause and then Dad shouted “What?” in the phone. “I told her to clean it and now she has left? Oh watching Ellie and James I see….Car accident? Can you clean it then…Just do me a favor and do it.”
Dad was very frustrated. Then he hung up. “Man, she can’t even do a simple thing,” said Dad.
“You get upset over little things,” said Mom.
“So do you and the kids,” Dad said back.
Dad put the window down again. “Natalie, change your nappy when we get back, I am not smelling it. First the cat box and now this.”
When we got home, Dad looked at the litter box and started yelling about it. “God damn it, our kids never listen.”
“I do listen,” I said.
I took off my shoes and set them aside.
“I told her to do it and she doesn’t and then I ask Matthew to do it and he wouldn’t either,” Dad was saying.
Mom and Dad started to argue over the litter box as I headed upstairs. Mom was telling Dad to clean it if it bothers him so much and he was saying how we kids never listen and Mom told him back that is because he makes a huge deal out of things that are no big deal and we kids are sick of it so we ignore him. Maybe his pills should be increased.
“Natalie, guess what?” said Matthew in the hallway. “Veronica was in a car accident. Isn’t that great?”
“Why?” I asked.
“She got in one last night after the game and all her friends and she had to go to the hospital and Veronica is still there. She is in critical condition. Their car was totaled.”
“It’s not great,” I said.
“But she was a bad friend so it was great it happened.”
“Well we were in one too when you were a baby and look what happened to me? I’m lucky I can still walk and didn’t die so I don’t think car accidents are great.”
“They are when it happens to bad people.”
“But her friends were in one too,” I pointed out.
“Maybe she will wear diapers too just like you,” said Matthew.
“That be nice,” I said.
“Oh for Fuck’s sake, this has to be the dumbest argument we are having, I’m done with this discussion,” I heard Mom say downstairs.
“Wow, you didn’t need to be right this time, now that is something new,” said Dad. “Oh wait, if you think any discussion is dumb, you will just leave it and not argue if you think the topic is stupid.”
I wondered about Veronica. How bad was she? Was she going to die or was she okay? When would she come home? What injuries did she have? Why was I feeling bad about her?
“How bad is Veronica do you know?” I asked.
“They said she is in the hospital and she is all bruised and has some broken bones,” Matthew replied.
“But what bones did she break?”
“I don’t know,” said Matthew.
“Is she going to die?”
“I don’t know.”
“When is she coming home?”
“I don’t know. She isn’t my sister.”
“How did you find out about the accident?”
“Kelly told me when she had to go over there and babysit on short notice. Plus she left a note on the fridge for Mom and Dad.”
I went in my room and got back on the computer. I continued my daily jigsaw. Mom came in my room with the pills and diapers still in the bag. She put them on my dresser. Then she said, “Natalie, I am making your father go a week without drinking so I will need all your kids help. I want you to make sure he won’t take a sip. You will help keep an eye on him and if you see any traces of beer around, let me know. Also if he shows any signs that he has been drinking, let me know okay.”
“Okay,” I said.
“You better get cleaned up; you don’t want to get an infection do you?”
Mom left the room and then I heard her telling Matthew the same thing. Then I heard her bribing him if he helps her out. “I want a Nintendo 64,” he said.
“Okay I will try and get you one if you do help me out,” she said. “I can’t promise you because Dad keeps all the money and I only have limited access to it. But if you help me out, I will try and get you one. If not, I won’t try; your choice.”
Dad keeps all the money because he handles all the finances and the bills. He will only give Mom some of it he makes because she can’t manage it well. When Brian was little, she would always buy him things and do stuff with him that cost money and it caused problems because Dad couldn’t pay the rent always and Mom couldn’t seem to grasp it so he decided he will take all the money and she would have no access to it. For Mom it’s either she can afford it or she can’t so if she sees something she likes and they have the money, they can afford it and it’s so hard for her to not spend it. So with little money, she can manage it better. Some people think Dad is being a control freak but I guess they would rather go broke if their own partner had a spending problem. People are so stupid. Mom is aware of her money problem so she lets Dad handle it all. She told me some people need to control all the money if their partner can’t handle it. It’s like he gives her allowance by giving her little bit of it every month and if she needs more for something important, she lets him know and he will give it to her. Mom doesn’t even have a credit card either or else she might put Dad in debt. Mom will never sign up for one either because they put you in debt and she doesn’t trust herself with it.
After I was done with the jigsaw, I went onto the incontinent support board on Bravenet I always go to. I read a few threads there but the whole place gets filled with people who like to wear diapers and sometimes they will ask how they can make themselves incontinent or ask us how we became incontinent. I find it really annoying because I want to read posts by people who are incontinent, I don’t want to see any threads by people who aren’t and just want to wear diapers or like to but I have become friend with some of them. But the web owner kicks them off the forum but others keep coming back. I found a thread there called “Hey diaper wannabes.” I clicked on it. It read, “This is a place for people who have to wear diapers for a medical reason, not for a fantasy. There is a place for that. Now quit trolling our message board.”
I never understood the term trolling. I see that word a lot online and I don’t understand what it has to do with trolls if they are just people.
Then below was a link to another Bravenet forum. I clicked on it and it said Diaper Story’s at the top. I looked at some posts there. Some were even stories. I saw some abbreviations like AB DL and word adult baby or diaper lover. I read around on there and saw the stories there were about people wearing diapers because they liked to and some wore for bed wetting or wore because they were forced to as a punishment. I never knew there was a name for people who like diapers, they were called diaper lovers. For people that like to pretend to be a baby, they were called adult baby or teen baby. I wonder what it would be called if a kid liked being a baby, kid baby or preteen baby depending on their age. I decided to have some fun and type in diaper stories and see what happens. So I went to a search engine and typed it in and found some sites. I found a site with a bunch of chapters on it and it said Ashley’s Diaper Adventures. I started reading it. It started out with a girl who starts wetting the bed for no reason and then one day she sneaks to the store while her parents were out somewhere and gets herself some diapers so her parents wouldn’t wonder why her little sister’s diapers were disappearing so fast. She was taking them from her room to wear at night and disposing it before everyone else got up. She wears them to bed and then her mother finds them and takes them from her. I don’t get it, what is wrong with wearing diapers at night for bed wetting? Would her mother rather wash sheets every day?
I kept on reading and then her parents decided to give them back to her. Her father was against it at first but the doctor said to let Ashley wear them so she decides to and it has to be all the time like me. I kept on reading and I enjoyed it despite lot of spelling errors. I even noticed her father had the same name as my dad and her brother’s name was Brian and her sister’s name was Kelly but Brian kept being spelled as Brain. What a coincidence. At least my name wasn’t Ashley. But I do have a cousin named that. At least my last name isn’t Roberts. I wonder what the mother’s name is.
Then I heard Dad calling us for lunch. I kept on reading. I didn’t want to stop just to eat.
“Natalie, Matthew,” Dad called again. “Your lunch is on the kitchen counter.”
“I’m busy,” I shouted.
I read some more.
Then Matthew came in my room complaining about how he never gets to be on the computer because Kelly or I are always on it.
“You’re never on it when none of us are,” I said.
“Because I am always busy doing something else,” he said.
“You can stop and do the computer and then do something else when we are on it and when you see we aren’t on it, just get on and go back to what you were doing later,” I said.
“It’s too hard to stop and do something else,” said Matthew.
“No it’s not. You just do it.”
Matthew is so silly; he finds lot of things hard for no reason. He can’t even tie his shoes either so he wears Velcro shoes. But Albert Einstein couldn’t tie his shoes either. I wonder if Matthew would be the next him because he is great at math. The work is too easy for him so he finds it all boring but he has problems in other subjects like social studies or reading and DOL but he isn’t dyslexic. He just finds any work boring that isn’t his interest and only way that keeps him doing it is he gets TV privileges for it and other rewards. I sometimes get jealous of him because of the special privileges he gets I never got. Plus he loves to build things in his room and sometimes he takes his toys apart like Sid does in Toy Story.
Matthew kept bugging me about the computer so I told him to leave me alone. But he still kept bugging me so I got out of my chair, grabbed him and pushed him out of my room and locked the door. Matthew pounded on it as I sat back down.
“What is your problem?” Dad asked my brother out in the hall.
“I never get to be on the computer, it’s not fair,” Matthew whined.
“Is your sister on it now?”
“Yes.”
I heard him turning the knob and then he knocked on the door. I felt irritated. I hated being interrupted.
“What?” I shouted.
“Open the door princess,” said Dad.
I got out of my chair and opened the door. Dad came in and sniffed his nose
“Natalia, I told you to change that nappy of yours, this is so disgusting. How can you stand smelling like this?”
“I’m at home and not in public,” I replied.
“I am reconsidering you two getting your own rooms again. I am sure that rubbish over there smells and makes this whole room smell like urine and poo,” Dad pointed to my trash can. “When are you going to be done with the computer?”
“I don’t know,” I said.
“How long have you been on it?”
“Since we got home.”
“Okay you have been on it long enough. Let Matthew have a turn.”
“But I had it first,” I said.
“Okay, whatever you are doing online, when you are through, let him have it okay?”
“Fine,” I said.
“Matthew, wait until your sister is done and then you can have it,” Dad told him. “I am putting both your food in the fridge with your names on it and whenever you are ready to come on down and eat, it will be in the fridge.”
He left the room and I went back to reading. Matthew finally left me alone and he was back in his room or wherever he went.
My bottom was getting really uncomfortable from the poop and pee and I could feel the rash starting again. But I was so into the story, I didn’t want to leave it.
After I had read thirty chapters, I decided I better change, plus my tummy was grumbling. I grabbed my new diaper from the paper sack and grabbed the rash cream too. I saw I had leaked on the chair. For some reason, poop will make me leak sooner and the front of the diaper gets wet instead because the pee goes to the front instead of in the middle and back. I put the away message on AOL so my buddies would know I was away and not think I was ignoring them. I headed to the bathroom and took the diaper off. I used toilet paper to wipe the mess away and then I took off my socks and sweat shirt and t shirt and turned the water on. I got in the tub and washed the poop off my butt. I hate doing this because of the smell and it gets all over but that is what water is for, I can wash it off. After I was done, I dried off and put the diaper on after I had put on some rash cream. It was indeed thick. I looked at it in the mirror and massaged it. I wondered how I was going to wear these in public. I tossed the pants in the hamper with the dirty clothes. I put my t shirt back on and socks and went back in my bedroom. I put on another pair of pants and threw my used diaper away. I went downstairs and got my food out of the fridge.
“Did you change?” Dad asked.
“Yes,” I said.
“Good. I thought so. I also want you to start taking those pills we got you at the medical store starting now. You can keep the pills with your medicine so you remember to take them after you are done eating.”
I sat down at the table and ate my food. It was pasta Dad or Mom cooked. I wasn’t sure where Mom was.
“Natalie, I want to do family time tonight at six,” Dad told me. “So when that time comes, come to the family room.”
When Dad isn’t at work, he always wants to do family time. He will make us tell him about our days while he was at work and make us watch a movie together or a TV show or play board games or work on a puzzle. Sometimes he will take us out. It’s a way to spend time with us and with our Mom. Dad will even write it on the board so everyone knows to expect it. But we all know whenever he is off work, there is going to be family time.
After I finished eating, I went upstairs and went back to the story forgetting about my new pills.
Six o clock came. Dad had to call me down because I had forgotten about it. Then I remembered when he told me it was family time. Kelly still hadn’t come home. Wow, the parents were sure gone all day. Mom was already in the family room waiting. The diaper I had on felt great and I still felt dry and it felt a little thicker from the wetness. I had not been following my changing schedule like Mom told me to. I guess I would try this diaper out and see how long I can go before it leaks. So far it was holding good.
Dad brought Matthew downstairs. Matthew sat on the couch and started bouncing on it like Tigger.
“Okay,” said Dad. “Kelly is absent so it’s just the four of us. I have been working a lot and I took the day off because of the complaint I wanted to file with your mother. But sadly I have to go back to work tomorrow. My boss won’t let me take any time off.”
“You go to the bar don’t you after work?” said Mom.
“I am not going to go there,” said Dad. “The last thing I need is another argument about my drinking.”
“Great, you are able to put that aside but you couldn’t put the litter box aside,” said Mom.
“Anita,” said Dad. Then he went back to his talking. “Now that I am home for today, we are having family time until eight. So Matthew, tell us all about how your days at school have been. Any A’s or C’s, anything special going on at school?”
“Math is too easy,” said Matthew.
“I bet. Any friends at school you have made?” Dad asked.
“Kids are my friends when they need help with a problem.”
“What problem? A mathematical problem?”
“Yes, math problem.”
“Well the meeting with your teacher is coming up soon so you will be staying after school when your Mom goes in and talks with your teacher. I want to go in too so I will have to take time off work again and leave early. Okay Natalie, tell me about your typical school week.”
“Um I got kicked out of school for imitating James Bond and kids liked it and laughed so I kept on doing it to make them laugh,” I said.
“We already know that, any other things?”
“I feel retarded in school. Things go too fast, when we corrected an assignment in Geography, it went too fast and kids got mad at me when I kept wanting the teacher to repeat herself so another kid corrected the paper for me. I also can’t keep up what the teachers say and work assignments are so hard to understand, my mind seems to skip words when I hear them so I don’t hear them all and I always forget what is said, I can’t understand what goes on in a story when I read it and then we have to write five paragraphs about it and I don’t even know what to say about it, then at the game, my team mates treated me like their opponent instead of a team member and they think I don’t participate when I warm up. They are all so good at it and I suck at it,” I said.
“But you are not retarded, we keep telling you that,” said Mom.
“But I feel retarded, retarded kids can’t even do their school work at their level so I must be too.”
“Natalie, you just have a different way of learning and you are a concrete thinker and the work is too abstract and you have to do abstract thinking and it’s something you have difficulty with,” said Dad. “A learning disability is not the same as having mental retardation. If we told you what your IQ is, would you stop saying you are? You need to have an IQ of seventy or below and you aren’t even close to that.”
“If I am not even close to being retarded, then why do I feel so different and younger than my age? People don’t make any sense, I can’t tell if they are joking or being sarcastic, they are so hard to talk to and be with, everyone treats me different. People seem to expect me to read their minds and they don’t make any sense. I don’t even feel my own age and I can’t seem to act my age either. Isn’t that what retarded people do? I bet the car accident made me be.”
Dad sighed. “Natalie, there are so many conditions out there. Symptoms always overlap. But you are not retarded. Was Kelly retarded just because she had troubles with reading and writing growing up?”
I didn’t answer.
“Natalie, answer the question,” said Dad.
“No,” I said.
“Is Mom retarded?”
“No,” I said.
“Is Matthew retarded?”
“No.”
“There you go. If you’re retarded, then so are they and do you know how insulting it is to call yourself one?”
“Why?” I asked.
“Because having troubles learning in school does not always make you retarded, having a hard time fitting in and having friends does not make someone retarded, missing jokes and sarcasm and teasing does not make someone retarded, having problems with social skills does not make someone one either. Is retarded all you can think of Natalie when someone has problems with learning or development? I wish you get it out of your head and stop calling yourself that. I wish you stop thinking yourself as one. Was Albert Einstein retarded? He failed math. He couldn’t tie his shoes and he was very smart and had a high IQ. He also talked late.”
“I can’t help it,” I said.
“Well are all the kids at the special school retarded?” Dad asked.
“I don’t know, I’ve never been there so how am I supposed to know?” I said.
“Well maybe you will stop feeling this way when you go there. Calling yourself one, you are implying Mom and Matthew are too and Kelly.”
“That’s stupid,” I said. “I am only talking about myself.”
“How can you think of yourself as being retarded if you don’t think that of anyone else?” Dad asked. “That makes no sense. Besides if you keep calling yourself that, people may think you are making fun of retarded people.”
That astounded me because it was so stupid. “Why?” I asked.
“Because you are calling yourself that so someone who may over hear it may have a sibling who is or a cousin, someone they know who is and they would think you are poking fun at them.”
“But why would someone think that if someone is clearly upset about themselves being different?”
“Never mind,” said Dad. “I just wish you get over thinking that way about yourself, do you know how upsetting it is to hear you say that?”
“No,” I said.
“Very upsetting. It breaks your mother’s heart when she sees you think of yourself that way”
Mom was nodding her head.
“She was labeled as such too when she was your age and now you have been brainwashed into believing you are. Your Mum never thought she was. She just knew the other students were ignorant and they didn’t even know what retarded meant. Did she or I ever mention she used to volunteer in a hospital for the severely abnormally developed kids and she also saw retarded kids there?”
“I did volunteer there,” said Mom. “And no way were you like the retarded kids I saw there.”
“You did more than me,” I told her.
“Yes she did,” said Dad. “You never do anything, all you want to do is play on the computer or watch TV or play video games and read and stay at home. Your Mum liked getting out of the house and doing things just to get away from her mother and brother. Then she moved out and lived with Aunt Elizabeth and took care of her kids. She was a great person and still is. She can be a handful, she kept dumping out my beer and then bans me from it for a week,” and he laughed, “but you hear men say women are lot of work.”
“I don’t hear it,” I said.
“Well I mean lot of men will say women are lot of work and women say the same about them. I’m sure your mum will say the same about me.”
“You are,” Mom told him.
“See?” said Dad.
We all laughed except Matthew.
“Now, will we still hear that out of your mouth about you being retarded or are you done calling yourself that?” Dad asked.
“I think I am done,” I said.
“Okay good because if we hear that out of your mouth one more time, we will start making you say three positive things about yourself like we used to do and maybe start asking you every time if Mom is or Kelly or Matthew or Aunt Celeste or Uncle Sam.”
Then Dad said to Mom, “Okay Hun, what have you been doing while I am away at work?”
He calls Mom Hun too sometimes. Sometimes I will hear him say Honey or Cutie or call her Missy when he is mad or call her darling.
Mom isn’t even cute. She’s average. Blond hair like me but it’s darker, she has a bit of a belly from having four kids and she is a little heavier than me. She told me your body changes from having children and it also changes as you get older so you put on a little weight. Her body was fine after Brian and she was back to her normal body within two weeks after having him but hers changed a little when she had me because she was older. But she isn’t fat. I have seen her driver’s license and she weighs 145 it said. She said she weighed 120 when she met Dad and then 125 after she had Brian and then she was 130 when she had me and Kelly. Then she weighed more after she had Matthew. But I weigh more than Mom did because I am taller by two inches. So I’m taller than my own mother. I reached her height in sixth grade and then was taller than her by the time I started Junior High. I haven’t grown much since then and only grew a little bit by an inch. Kelly is now almost as tall as her. I have always been tall for my age so I always weighed more than other kids in my class even though I was thin. I was one of the tallest kids in my class. But I have seen old pictures of Mom and she looked pretty and skinny but now she is older, she isn’t as pretty. You get less attractive as you get older. What’s funny is despite that I was now taller than her, I was still fitting into youth or size small adult diapers which are pretty much the same size as the youth and they would not have fit Mom. Height doesn’t matter anymore when you are a teen and an adult because it now has to do with size. You can be shorter than someone and their clothes can be too small for you despite they are taller. But Mom was still changing me and my messy ones at age twelve despite that I had reached her height and then was taller than her. Then this summer she had decided it was time I do it on my own and she did it less and less. It started out with her being too busy and she didn’t want to stop what she was doing and told me to do it myself. Then finally she told me “Natalie, you’re fifteen, I think it’s time you learn to do it on your own or else you will wonder how you are going to change yourself when you are out on your own. I won’t always be around to do it.” So she would help me with it and now I can do it on my own. The messy ones are still tricky and if it’s not that bad, I can clean it up with no problem. But now I keep forgetting to change when I need to. I keep putting it off because I don’t want to stop what I am doing and then I keep on forgetting.
“Same as always,” said Mom.
“Nothing new?” Dad asked.
“You come home later and are working more,” said Mom.
“How are you and the kids getting along?”
“Normal,” said Mom.
“Okay, what shall we do together as a family?” Dad asked.
“Tell us about work,” said Mom.
“It’s been stressful and I have been working more because that is what the boss wants,” said Dad.
“Why won’t he let you take time off?” Mom asked.
“Because he needs me, can we please not talk about my work?”
“You ask us about our days, why can’t we hear about your day at work?” Mom asked.
“Can we talk about this later? I don’t want to discuss it right now. It’s not the right time.”
“Okay, we can talk about it at bed time,” said Mom.
“Sounds fine to me. Okay what shall we do as a family?”
None of us answered. None of knew what we wanted to do.
“How about we watch a movie and play a game together?” Dad suggested.
“Okay, sounds good,” said Mom.
“Who wants to pick out a game to play? Matthew how about you pick out a game for us to all play and Natalie, you pick out a movie but no James Bond.”
Aw nuts.
I went to the bookcase and looked at all the movies. Matthew went upstairs and looked for a game. I looked at all the movies we had. Most of them were blank tapes with recoded movies and some of them were Disney movies and family movies. We don’t have many rated R movies.
Lady and the Tramp, Free Willy, Free Willy 2, The Parent Trap, Cinderella, Beauty and the Beast,…I kept on reading the titles.
“How about a Tom Hanks movie,” Mom suggested.
“Oh that is a good idea; he is a funny man who plays in good movies. We have plenty of good ones with him in it,” said Dad as he took the pizza out of the oven he was cooking.
I still looked at the titles. Matthew came back down with the game of Memory.
“You picked an easy game for your sister, she will nail us all,” said Dad.
I am great at Memory, I can memorize where something is where and remember it and I beat everyone in it because of my great memory. I just watch what people turn over and I remember what is where at and when my turn comes, I turn over the matches. I have always had great memory as long as I could remember. I don’t understand how others are bad at it. I have also been good at these games where you have to memorize what is in the picture for a few seconds and then say what was in it and I can remember them all. It has amazed people and doctors. But no one at school cares for such a gift I have. They will be impressed at first and shocked and be upset about it and then they are back to being mean to me again.
“How about the game of Sequence?” said Dad.
“No,” said Matthew.
“Okay. Ready to get our butts beat by Natalie?”
I looked at the Tom Hanks movies we had. Splash, Turner & Hooch, Big, Sleepless in Seattle, Forest Gump, You’ve Got Mail, A league of Their Own, Apollo 13, and of course Toy Story.
“Natalie, we’re waiting,” said Dad.
I decided on A league of Their Own. After all Tom Hanks plays a drunk and he was a jerk and then he turns nice. I don’t get why Dottie liked him but thanks to her he turned into a good man. But his alcoholism ruined his ball career because he was so drunk, he started a fire in the hotel room and jumped out the window and hurt his knee and it was permanent.
I took the movie off the shelf and put it in the VCR.
“What did you pick?” Dad asked.
“There’s no crying in baseball,” I said quoting one of Tom Hanks’s lines in the movie.
Matthew was setting up the game on the coffee table.
“Ready to kick our butts?” Dad asked.
“Yes,” I said.
After the game was set up, Mom went first. Then I was next, then Matthew, then Dad. I already knew what all the cards were so far that had been flipped. My turn was again and I saw I had flipped over a car and now I knew where both teddy bears were. I had to wait until my next turn to turn them over. I watched the other cards get flipped over and when my turn came, I got the teddy bear matches and then another match on accident.
After the game, I had won.
Matthew got some pizza and so did I.
“You kicked our butts Natalie,” said Dad. “Hey maybe you we can take you to Vegas when you turn twenty one and have you count cards. Maybe you will win us some huge money.”
“I don’t think she has that good of memory,” said Mom. “He was a savant.”
What were they talking about?
“What are you talking about?” I asked.
“It was a joke,” said Mom.
“Oh I was referring to the movie Rain Man again. He could memorize everything like books and cards so he won money in Las Vegas and they get kicked out of town for it but yet he couldn’t even hold a conversation and he couldn’t make decisions or really answer questions. He couldn’t even take care of himself so he lived in an institution,” Dad explained.
“Was he retarded?” I asked.
“No he was autistic.”
“But wasn’t he retarded too, he sounds like it,” I said.
“Like I told you Natalie, symptoms overlap.”
“Uncle John is,” I pointed out.
“Actually, he could be smart as everyone else,” said Mom. “People who are nonverbal or have other communication problems tend to score lower on IQ tests. I used to score in the retarded range when I was little so everyone thought I was until I was ten. I only had one teacher who knew I wasn’t because she could just tell by how I acted so she taught me to read and I was nine when I learned how. Then by the time I was in high school, I was reading at the college level and I was reading dictionaries and encyclopedias and I was someone who didn’t shut up and I talked at people and dominated conversations. I couldn’t even have a normal conversation and no one could have one with me and I didn’t know small talk.”
“I remember all that,” said Dad. “You still do it but not as bad. You always ignored me but yet you would talk at me about your interests, anything you thought was interesting and you never looked at anyone or me and I couldn’t joke with you or even tease you and you wouldn’t listen to anything that wasn’t your interest. Now you have blossomed ever since we have had all our kids.”
We played another game of memory and I won again.
“Okay, let’s play something else,” said Mom. “None of us will ever win, not with Natalie playing.”
“Let’s play Go Fish,” said Matthew and he grabbed all the cards and started scrambling them in the pile and then he started to push each one to us. We each had five cards and the rest were in the pile on the table. Matthew went first.
“Mom, do you have this pink sissy house?” Matthew asked holding up the card.
“Go fish,” said Mom.
Matthew took a card out of the pile. Dad was next and he asked me if I had a frog.
“Go fish,” I said.
Dad took a card from the pile.
Mom was next and asked Matthew if he had a shoe.
Matthew handed her his card and Mom put the match down. She went again asking him if he had a boy and she showed him the card.
“Go fish.”
Mom picked a card out of the pile. It was my turn.
“Dad, do you have snort snort,” I snorted like a pig as I showed him the pig.
“Go fish,” he said.
Mom went in the kitchen and grabbed two pieces of pizza and sat back down.
We all kept playing and Matthew and I were being silly when we ask if Mom or Dad or I or he have something. “Do you have the ribbit ribbit?” I said again to Dad. He handed me his card and I put the match down and went again.
Kelly came home while we were all playing. I felt upset and annoyed because I hate interruptions. Kelly had to come home and ruin our peaceful time. Dad started talking to Kelly asking her about Veronica and what she did at their house.
“We played Hide and Go Seek, played Diddy Kong Racing, watched a movie, colored, played Monopoly Junior,” said Kelly. “Veronica is all covered in bruises and has another broken leg and has a broken arm and she is swollen around her neck. She has to wear a brace.”
Kelly kept on talking and Dad kept on listening. All I had to do was watch the movie. I watched Stilwell the brat running down the aisle with flyswatters in his hand hitting the girls in the back and covering the bus driver’s eyes and suitcases came toppling down off shelves above the seats and everyone was shouting. Pandemonium.
“Let’s get back to the game,” I said.
“I’m waiting,” said Matthew.
Mom just left and went upstairs.
I waited a few more minutes and then I told Kelly to leave and we are playing a game.
“Natalie, be polite, don’t be rude,” said Dad.
“But she interrupted our game,” I said.
“We are playing Go Fish and doing family time, come join us,” Dad told Kelly.
“I just got home,” she said.
“It’s family time until eight. Come join us or wait until we are done with the same and then join us.”
Kelly and Dad went upstairs. Dad and Mom came back down. We continued the game but it felt different. Mom didn’t seem to be having fun anymore and I felt the same way. Kelly just had to ruin it coming home and now it’s hard to concentrate on the game.
We kept on playing until the game ended. Then Dad called Kelly to come on down. She came down moaning about family night.
“C’mon, it’s only until eight,” said Dad.
Kelly sat down on the floor at the coffee table. Matthew shuffled up the cards again and passed them out.
“There is pizza in the kitchen, you want any?” Dad asked.
“I am not hungry,” she said.
“Okay, I will take the last two pieces then,” said Dad as he got up.
“Can we play another game? This game is gay,” said Kelly.
“How’s it gay?” I asked.
“It just is, it’s boring and I am too old for it,” Kelly replied.
“Mom and I are playing it,” said Dad.
“But can we play something more challenging like Monopoly or Sorry or The Game of Life or Pay Day or Uno Rummy Up or Scrabble or Parcheesi?”
“Parcheesi,” I shouted.
I love that game. My favorite is making all these blockades to block my opponents to keep them from going home and then I break it up when I get my guys to the safe zone or have no one out for me to move so I have no choice but to break the blockade.
“Okay, we’ll play it then,” said Dad.
Kelly headed upstairs and got the game and brought it down. She took out one of the boards and took out the pieces and the dice. It’s a family fun game set with five games in it, it has backgammon, chess, checkers, Parcheesi, and Chinese checkers. I decided on red and Mom was blue, Matthew was green and Kelly was yellow. Dad was just going to watch because it’s a four player game. Mom went to the bathroom again while we were all setting up. She seems to be going more often, I thought she said she only goes every four hours. She did go before we started the game of Memory. When Mom came out, Dad slapped her in the butt, not hard, just a normal slap in the butt. I know he didn’t do it to spank her because he wasn’t mad.
I slapped Kelly in the butt and then I got up and went after Matthew.
Kelly yelled at me for doing it to her of course and then Matthew said he didn’t want me touching him there but I did anyway.
“Natalie, Natalie,” said Dad. “That is enough.”
“You did it to Mom,” I pointed out.
“I was just playing with her, we’re married and just because I do it to her doesn’t mean you can start slapping other people in the butt. You can only do it to your own boyfriend. I can do it to Mum because we’re married. Now if I walked up to some lady in the store and slapped her in the butt, I can be charged with sexual harassment.”
“Okay, so I can only slap my husband in the butt, not boyfriend,” I said.
“You can slap your partner in the butt you don’t need to be married to do it.”
“Okay, only slap my boyfriend or husband in the butt,” I said.
“You got it,” said Dad.
We started playing Parcheesi. I watched the movie while waiting for my turn.
When eight o’ clock game, we were still playing but Dad said “Okay, family time is over, you kids can go and do whatever you want.”
“Can we finish this game?” Mom asked.
“If you want I don’t care,” Dad took all our plates to the kitchen and stuck them in the dishwasher. He saw it was full and turned it on after he put soap in it.
A League of Their Own was still playing.
“God I can’t stand Kit, she is so annoying,” said Kelly. “Anyone ever want to slap her?”
“She isn’t real,” I said.
“I know that,” said Kelly. “If I were one of the players or Dottie, I would have started slapping her.”
“She sure does a good job playing her if you find her that annoying,” said Mom.
I never found Kit annoying. I view her as someone who frowns a lot and is immature and gets jealous too easily and blames all her problems on Dottie. Only person I ever found annoying in the movie is Stilwell and I don’t understand how he is a sweet boy. I wonder if he has anything wrong with him and Kit too. Dad says they are both normal and its normal what Dottie and Kit are doing, they’re sisters so they fight and do sibling rivalry. Sometimes competition goes on between siblings and one of them compares themselves to the other and gets jealous and thinks they are not good enough. Stilwell is just a brat because he lacks discipline. I guess not all parents yelled and screamed at their kids back then and didn’t slap them around. That was the way parenting was done in those days and now today it would be seen as child abuse and bad parenting.
We finished the game of Parcheesi and we put the game away and Kelly took it upstairs and put it away in the hall closet. If we left it sitting out, Dad would have gotten upset because it wasn’t put away properly and it doesn’t matter if the game is put away, the game has to be in the closet where it belongs. Dad is more of a neat freak than Mom. She doesn’t get as upset but she will tell us to put it away. She does not like dealing with Dad’s episodes so she makes us keep things picked up and what is the big deal about keeping the house cleaned? So she just keeps things picked up to keep him calm because it’s no big deal. She likes things neat too but she can stand having one thing out of place and not throw a fit about it.
I went upstairs and grabbed a new diaper and my pajamas and went to the bathroom to shower. I took the diaper off and it was soaked with pee. I had it on for like seven hours and it held good. There were no leaks. I did enjoy the thickness of them and the padding and I felt secured. Now I wonder if it will hold me all night. I shall wait and see. I showered and when I was through, I got out and dried off and put the clean diaper on and my pajamas. I rolled my other diaper up and took it to my room to throw away.
Kelly was on the computer again. I decided to show her my new diapers and my odor remover pills.
“Hey look what my parents got me,” I said as I showed her the new pack of diapers and the pills.
I even lifted up my nightshirt and showed her my new diaper.
“Wow, that’s nice,” she said.
“These pills are supposed to remove the poop smell so when I mess myself you don’t smell it,” I said.
“Will it keep the diapers from smelling when you throw them away?” Kelly asked.
“I don’t know,” I said.
“Are you going to take them now?”
“Oh yeah, I forgot, thanks for reminding me,” I said. I took the wrapper off the top and opened the cap and poured out one pill. I put it in my mouth and chewed it. It tasted good and I wanted more but I couldn’t eat it like candy because it said to only take one after each meal and take it up to three times a day and to not exceed six capsules a day.
Then I remembered what Dad told me where to keep these pills so I went down stairs and put them with my medication which I also had to take. If I forget to take them, I have a hard time sleeping and that is how I know I didn’t take them so I do and then I go to sleep. I got my pills and took them and went back upstairs. I left the lights on because Matthew was down there playing with Skippy in the family room.
“Natalie, what is this?” Kelly asked again.
I went in my bedroom and saw what she was looking at online.
“Diaper Stories, what the heck, what is it with all these weird posts. Do you like wearing diapers?”
“They keep my pants dry,” I said.
“All these people are talking about getting diapers and wearing them and pooping in them and wetting them.”
“So,” I said. “Isn’t that funny? There are people out there who like to wear them and they don’t even need them.”
“I find that gross,” said Kelly.
“Am I gross?”
“No, you need them. These people don’t so it’s gross.”
'I don’t see the difference," I said. “I pee in them, so do they, what is so different about them doing it and why is it gross when they do it but not when I do it? We both pee in them.”
“I don’t understand why someone would want to wet their pants and sit in it. I wouldn’t want to do that and I wonder how do you even do it especially when you have no control and those people do so why would they want to get pee and poo all over themselves and they have a choice and you don’t.”
“I don’t either,” I said. “It is weird but it helps me feel better about myself. Honestly I do wish I did have a choice and I could just choose to do it.”
“Why?”
“Because incontinence is a pain in the ass and with those people, they can just take the diaper off and not deal with it and not have accidents and any inconvenience. They don’t have to get stuck in the same diaper or have leaks or be stuck in any messy ones in public or deal with any messy diapers in public when they go change and if their diaper is about to leak, they can just hold it. They get to enjoy their diapers and I can’t. If they get tired of changing them, they can just quit and do it whenever they want to and I can’t. They’re so lucky I wish I just liked them and choose to wear them.”
“Why not wish you weren’t incontinent at all?” Kelly asked. “That would make more sense than wishing to choose to wear one and pee all over yourself.”
Kelly looked more online and then she started reading something. I looked at what she was reading and it was Ashley’s Diaper Adventure. Later in the story, Kelly said “Oh it’s one of these stories, she likes peeing in diapers too and people write this stuff?”
Mom and Dad were in their bedroom so they weren’t paying attention to what we were doing.
“Yes,” I said.
“Sometimes I don’t understand people. I can’t imagine what it’s like to not ever understand them but there are just a few things I don’t understand. Will Mom and Dad approve of this stuff you’re on?”
“I see nothing inappropriate about it,” I said. “So why would they not like it?”
“Because it’s all weird and there are weird people online. They write sick things. How do you find these people?”
“I go to the incontinent board and it gets filled with people who like to wear diapers and don’t even need them and then someone posted a link to the other board and it had all this stuff by people who like to wear diapers and they all talk about it and write about it,” I said.
“You must have talent for finding strange people,” said Kelly.
“All I did was go to the incontinent board and people just happen to be on there who like diapers when they shouldn’t be,” I said.
“And how did you start talking to that one guy who showed you pornography sites?”
“We met on that board and I had my AOL name posted,” I said.
“And he knew you were a minor right?”
“Yes.”
“But you must still have talent because you attract all these weird people.”
“So,” I said. “They’re fun to talk to. It’s fun to go in chat rooms and be a jerk and say bad words and insult people and they don’t even know who you are and what you look like. I did that at your age and then I quit because it got boring.”
“Yeah you can do anything on the internet and get away with it,” said Kelly. “I could pretend to be a seventeen year old hot guy and use an old photo of Brian if I knew how to put pictures online and see how many people I can fool. I think I am going to go to the chat room right now and say something so disgusting to see what reactions I get.”
Kelly went to a chat room and then she started to type. I saw a conversation was going on in the room. Kelly said “Hi” and then she started saying “Does anyone like to wet their pants, it’s so fun and it feels good. I like to sleep in my own pee and my mattress smells like piss and I like to pee in a cup and drink it.”
I started laughing. “You liar,” I teased.
“It’s the internet,” said Kelly.
“That is so gross,” someone wrote.
Kelly kept on talking about her fake experience with peeing her pants and doing it in bed and sleeping in it and taking a bath in her own pee. She got some single IMs about it telling her to take her fetish somewhere else and another person told her how gross she is and needs to get her head checked. Other IMs were unpleasant she got.
Kelly and I were both laughing.
“Maybe I should get back into this again and make up stories this time,” I said.
“The internet is awesome if you love to get reactions,” said Kelly.
Kelly kept on chatting in the chat room and making up stuff she could think of anything that is gross. Then she said she has a retarded mother and she enjoys beating her with a baseball bat when she acts too retarded so beating her will make her act normal. That got her some nasty responses.
Kelly and I were laughing hysterically when Dad came in our room. “What is so funny?” he asked. “We could hear you all the way in our room.”
“Kelly is making up stories in the chat room to get reactions out of people,” I said.
Dad came over and looked at the chat room. He also saw what Kelly wrote.
“You need to cut that out,” he said. “You might say something and then find the FBI on our doorstep if you are not careful with your practical jokes.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Last year there was a kid who was in the chat room and he wrote something about people coming to kill everyone so they better watch out. Someone from the chat room called the police and the FBI and within hours, they showed up on the boy’s doorstep and took him away for doing a threat.”
“That is so stupid,” I said.
“Well with the school shootings that have happened in the past two years, of course people will take those things seriously. What is it with Americans being allowed to have guns? I don’t remember any school shootings happening where I lived. Now Kelly writes about beating Mum with a baseball bat and saying she is retarded? That can get you in serious trouble Kelly. Don’t you know assault is illegal?”
“But if they came here, they would see Mom isn’t retarded and she doesn’t get beaten with a baseball bat,” I said.
“I don’t care, I don’t want to take any chances and deal with all this,” said Dad. “Just stop messing with the chat rooms or do we need to disconnect internet from this room if you two can’t use it maturely.”
Dad left our room and Kelly exit the chat room. People were starting to ignore her anyway.