Sissy Room

Gave in to sleep and slept most of the last two days away, still tired, but not as bad. Hoping to stay awake for a while today.

Depending on what expert you ask, infinity plus any number is the exact same as infinity. So I call last to infinity.

Yeah, thats how it looked in my neck of the woods.  To clarify what I said above the town had total town size is 4500, of that about 3300 are actually eligible to vote and registered which is about 75%of the town.  At the polling site numbers went from about 2000 voting in 2024 to just under 2400, that does include early voting numbers. Maine has a high turnout in general thats 73%ballots cast and is in line with alot of rural towns here that have showing of 75-80%.  Honestly I think the big draw was a proposal for a new county jail that would skyrocket the property taxes if approved. 

Actually. The more you can use your credit the better your credit score will be. I use a credit card for any bills I pay online. But you're absolitely right to make sure it's fully paid off each month. Treat any credit card just like a debit card, and you'll be ok. 

Chapter 11, part 2 ========== Sarah paused, lowering her notebook and looking in the rabbit’s direction. She started to curl her shoulders slightly, like she was trying to make herself smaller and not noticed, and then turned to look away. “At least it has the presence of mind to feel guilty about it.” The rabbit muttered softer, raising its head higher as it began to look away. “Excuse me, I couldn’t help but notice your comments directed toward my child.” Wendy said, straightening up and moving the cart back behind her so she could block their view of Sarah. “Would you mind letting me know which sources you’re using to decide how humans should be treated?” “Common sense, naturally.” The rabbit replied, nose twitching in mild agitation, “Excuse me but I wasn’t talking to you.” “Oh I know but I couldn’t help but pay attention to what was said! I’m a professor at Solthera University and an expert of sorts on human care and upbringing.” Wendy smiled, taking the comment in stride. “Giving humans a chance to express their wishes and feelings encourages a very healthy relationship between a caregiver and them, even if they don’t get their way. Just because they aren’t able to reach our intellectual abilities yet doesn’t mean we should always talk down to them.” “Excuse you madam, but I didn’t ask and I don’t care.” The rabbit huffed before moving past, grabbing a box for a 500 piece puzzle, and then promptly left the aisle. “I recommend not making rude comments within earshot then.” Wendy said in her best ‘helpful’ voice before quietly smiling at Sarah. Sarah did not change her posture, continuing to avoid eye contact and was looking down at some of the lower shelves were some of the board games could be found. She was ever so slightly jostled by the depositing of multiple other boxes into the cart as Lizzie continued to select game after game and several toys at a time. “Sarah,” Wendy said gently, offering a hand down to her and tried to gently turn Sarah’s gaze back to her. “She doesn’t matter. You’re safe.” ‘OK.’ Sarah wrote on the notepad, giving a small nod before turning to show her response. “Whelp, in better news, I got you like ten different games to try, a couple you can play on your own if you’re in the mood. Got some nice tinkering toys for ya, a pegboard you could throw hoops at, and a couple mini-figure games so you can assemble and paint your figures before you play your games with them!” Lizzie declared. Wendy took a look at the options and visibly winced for a brief moment. “Claymore? Really? You know how much of a money-trap that is.” “Yeah, but who can say no to heavy duty minifigs and she said she liked war games.”  ‘I said I like strategy. Can I see it at least so I know what expensive thing you’re trying to get?’ Sarah wrote and showed to Lizzie. “For sure!” Lizzie said, pulling out the box and moving it into view. Sarah looked at the box and then stared. Familiar looking giant ships with rounds flying between them were in the sky while on the ground were figures of giant armored figures firing lasers at some green monstrosities. ‘Warhammer? You are trying to get me into warha-’ She wrote, pausing as Lizzie chuckled. “It’s claymore. So many littles kept asking for that ‘warhammer’ thing to play with so a toy company got together to make a safer, more durable version for littles to play with! It’s popular-” Lizzie explained before she was cut off. “It’s expensive. She could get three other toys for the price of this.” “Then it’s coming out of my selfish spending budget as a gift for her from me.” Lizzie promised. “Besides, it takes effort to take these out of the frames and put them together, and then there’s painting them and playing with them-” “Okay, you made your point, as long as she is ok with it.” ‘Hard to say no to a gift.’ Sarah wrote, smiling sheepishly. ‘And it’s popular?’ “That’s what I hear anyway. Mostly read it out of different toy articles in the last couple weeks.” Lizzie said as she put the box back in the cart. ‘I expect it will be expensive, but is there any chance I can get a computer or something for my video game hobbies?’ Sarah requested. Wendy frowned, seeming to think as she licked her lips. After a brief pause, she explained. “I’ve read that most littles have more issues with socializing and interacting with others if they have too much screen time. The amount varies from study to study and little to little, but with how that was a hobby for you, I want to see you spend more time playing outside and with others now that you’re with us.” ‘Okay, but it is a hobby I enjoy a lot. I like the interactivity of it and it lets me communicate with friends. Both my parents gamed and my best memories were sharing games with them, board and video.’ Wendy mused, then gave a small nod. “Then tell you what, if I get you a tablet, you will let me set up parental controls on it and your time on it is monitored. I will give you warnings when you’re using it too much or not being responsible with it, including giving you limited time for games or stopping your games altogether. I can also make sure all you can do with it before or after certain times when you should be sleeping is listening to music quietly. No messages or videos or games or anything.” Sarah paused, thinking. <I really don’t like being so restricted. I’m an adult! I’ve been responsible! I get where she’s coming from, but I’m being treated like a kid!> Her writing then came calmly but as thought out as she could manage. ‘I understand. Can we temporarily agree to start, and have a talk later after you see how I use it? That way you know I’m not addicted or ignoring other options or socializing?> “That is completely reasonable. If you’re fully responsible, we can set aside a budget to get you a powerful one in a year or two once the custody matter is settled.” Wendy said, pushing the shopping cart down to the rather small electronics section. Many of the tablets were what Sarah would have expected, but rather large, easily the size of a chunkier 15 or 16 inch laptop. Wendy then got a case for it to go in, Sarah needing to approve the choice and preferring the light pink with gold motifs over the turtle-themed case. “Let’s get you some headphones so you can play in quiet when you need to. I’d rather you didn’t use them at home, but if you get overwhelmed at daycare, I can allow you to use them there or while we travel. Do you prefer in ear or over ear?” ‘I used to sleep with earbuds in-ear overnight as I listened to stuff.’ Sarah wrote, ‘But for most things, over ears with the headband is nice. Can they be noise cancelling capable so I can tune noisy rooms out? Only with permission like before.’ “Only with permission.” Wendy echoed, turning the cart around to show her the other side where a small selection of children-friendly headsets were available. Out of all the options, only four had noise cancelling. One pair was white, the next was black, the third was pink, and the fourth was a mix of colors much like the chair she had gotten. It reminded her a bit of lego pieces put together with its red headband, yellow adjustable side pieces, and blue and green ear muffs. It looked sturdy, and then she saw the price was a bit more than the others. ‘I don’t know why that one’s more expensive, but I think I want to try that one please.’ Sarah wrote, using the pen to point at the headset. “It says it is more durable than other headsets and has an extra year of customer protection.” Lizzie said after grabbing a pair and looking it over. She subtly gave Wendy another look, to which Wendy only smiled awkwardly. “Sounds like a good idea. Even if you’re very careful, accidents can happen.” Wendy said. “All that’s left is a coat, your backpack, a night light, and then we can look for some books and we’ll be all wrapped up in time for lunch.”  “We should check the measurements of her backpack, see if it can hold the tablet with the case on it.” Lizzie warned.  They had little to fear in the end. The story adventure themed backpack could hold the boxes for both the case and the tablet, albeit with a little effort fighting the zipper. It took up half of the compartment, but it still left the other half for books and a whole second compartment for whatever else she wanted, a bottle on the side, and a place to hold papers on the other side.  “Push comes to shove, we could fit some spare supplies in your backpack.” Lizzie grinned playfully at Sarah, plucking a star-themed night-light off one of the shelves as they headed to the counter to pay. Sarah blushed and looked away sheepishly, as if suddenly incredibly interested in her backpack and the characters that were on it. The items in the cart were checked by the cashier, then Wendy tapped her phone at a terminal and made a few motions on it before the sound of a cash register opening and closing came from a small speaker. “You’re all good. Have a great day and stay warm please.” The cashier said, waving at Sarah briefly as they started walking out. Sarah slowly raised a hand and tried to make it wave. The cashier’s ears drooped as she smiled wide before turning her attention back to the store as the doors closed. “Coat and books… I think we can find some coats over at The Fluff n Stuff.” Wendy said, looking around at the options as she pushed the cart onward. “You think that’s still around? We haven’t gotten a coat in years.” Lizzie doubted, moving through the small crowds as everyone meandered their way to where they wanted to be. Sure enough, the coat store still existed. They wandered to the back where the little and children sized coats were and then spent several minutes testing different coats on Sarah’s body, many of which were not wide enough in the shoulders to be comfortable or satisfy Wendy and Lizzie’s concerns for her warmth. They finally found a forest green puffy coat with some white fur trim on the hood and wrist cuffs that were only slightly too large for Sarah, along with a sky-blue hoodie-jacket for lighter weather. All their shopping completed, Wendy and Lizzie carted off their purchases and Sarah back toward their vehicle. As Sarah reviewed the cart and some of the purchases, she noticed they still hadn’t gotten some of the things they ordered. She started writing her question to the pair as they approached the exit. ‘What happens with the other stuff you bought but wasn’t in the store?’ Sarah asked, holding her notebook up right as Wendy moved to get Sarah’s new poofy winter coat onto her body. She continued to try to hold the notepad out of the way and to the side, frowning mildly as her hands needed to be coaxed into the sleeves and pulled through like a young child. “Well,” Wendy said, pausing briefly as she pulled the hand carefully, “When they don’t carry it in the store, either because they ran out or because it’s too big for most vehicles to transport safely, it is set for delivery. Our address is shared with the store and they get the credit for the order as it comes from a warehouse.” She paused as she got the other hand through and started fussing with the zipper, which Sarah only just noticed was larger than she was used to. “Sometimes it can cost extra, but usually if an order is big enough, they’ll waive the shipping fees. We have that luxury. It says we should get the bigger stuff in about 2 or 3 days, just in time for the weekend!” Wendy pushed the cart to the car with relative ease despite how full it was, Lizzie helping to pull until they arrived at the trunk. Lizzie began the work of unloading everything into the trunk while Wendy worked on fastening Sarah into the car seat. Sarah felt shy, partly because of how little she could help them with everything they had gotten for her use or benefit, and partly because she felt smaller being handled and fastened into the seat. She knew she was smaller than them, she shouldn’t have gotten smaller unless she and other humans shrank when they came to this world, but something about the act of being buckled in made her feel the part of the child who needed assistance. Wendy then moved to help put the supplies and toys into the car, soon lowering the two back seats to give the cargo space more room as the large packs of extra thick diapers were placed in the empty space to her side. Sarah’s backpack, tablet, case, and headphones were placed in the area below her feet, which somehow made her feel safer. Somehow it was like having her things she liked most nearby made her feel more prepared. The vehicle was nearly overflowing with everything that had been purchased, though the pair were very careful not to let anything overflow onto Sarah or into her space. They then put the cart away, leaving Sarah in relative quiet and mildly cold until they returned a couple minutes later, starting the vehicle and beginning their trip home. <That’s weird. I swear we spent a good two and a half, three hours in there, but the clock in the dashboard says it’s only been two hours. Maybe my sense of time is off from all that boredom with Charles?> Sarah mused, shrugging to herself and deciding that was probably the case. She tried to entertain herself on the way back by trying to read the back of the tablet’s case, to learn more about what it was capable of. Understandably, she could only learn so much. She saw specifications that meant nothing to her about its computing power, the brand of processing or size of storage. Everything was measured differently. The only thing that was listed that made sense was three listings of battery life based on heavy use, average use, and light use. Surprisingly, it was able to last for 15 hours of ‘heavy’ use with games and simulations running trying to drain it fully from 100%. Average use was 7 days with nighttime standby mode, a few hours of music playing, two hours of video watching, and 1 hour of gaming per day. Light use could last two weeks assuming standby mode outside of 1 hour a day of video watching or music playing.  <Huh… I actually really like that they listed the different scenarios. It lets me guess how long it could last based on my use approximating between those. I’ll be limited to 3 hours of use period and maybe some overnight music, so I’m guessing between 7 and 10 days? We’ll find out regardless.> Sarah mused before setting the box down. The rest of the ride was peaceful with music playing in the background until they reached their destination. Once they got back home, Wendy and Lizzie got out, Lizzie moving to start unpacking their purchases while Wendy worked to get Sarah inside. Sarah was soon deposited onto the couch and asked to stay put, and then Wendy and Liz made several trips into the home and back out. A few minutes later, the pile of supplies, toys, and furniture were in the living room near the couch and recliner in a rough pile. The pair closed the door, took off their outdoor gear, and then stretched. The sound of their backs popping echoed across the room and made Sarah flinch. “You get lunch started while I get these things upstairs?” Lizzie offered. “Yeah, just the diapers for now. We can leave some toys out down here for her to play with.” Wendy said, trying to limit Lizzie’s effort. “BLT sound good?” “We got any leftover chicken in the fridge?” “We do. Chicken sandwiches then?” “Yes please.” Lizzie said, grunting as she took up several packs of diapers in her arms and started carrying them upstairs. Sarah decided to focus on the things that were gotten for her use in mind and used her talent to lift the tablet, case, and headphones onto the coffee table near the couch and began testing her ability to open the boxes and do assembly with her talent. As much as she could feel the boxes and she knew she was ‘holding’ the things she moved, now that it was calm and she could focus on it, she realized how bizarre it felt to feel the objects yet watch as they seemed to just float on their own.  The assembly and preparations were relatively easy, which surprised Sarah. She expected some resistance and anti-theft measures she had grown accustomed to on Earth, but very little stopped her from being able to open the boxes, sliding out the items, and getting to the instructions. By the time Wendy finished assembling the sandwiches, Lizzie had finished making her trips up and down the stairs and Sarah had assembled the tablet into the case. Sarah had helpfully avoided locking the case closed, just to be safe for any steps that Wendy needed to set it up for her. Lizzie opted to sit at the small dining table, her legs spread outward from the wall toward the main area while Wendy grabbed her plate and went to join Sarah on the couch. “Hey Liz, mind making her a small bottle for lunch? Should be a quarter liter.” Wendy asked, then carefully climbed onto the couch by Sarah, placing one leg behind her as she lounged against the arm. She grinned playfully as she then scooped Sarah’s legs and back with her own and pulled Sarah into her lap. “Excuse me for assuming here, but I think you’ll find this more comfortable. Sarah blushed at the positioning, but she didn’t protest. She slowly adjusted herself to be more comfortable and then let herself lean on the vixen’s abdomen, resting her head on their ribs carefully. Amid listening to her heartbeat, she lifted the notepad with a message she wrote earlier. ‘I mostly installed the case, but I didn’t lock it in case you needed to add a sim card or storage or whatever before it got closed up.’ Sarah’s writing said, neater than usual. She had been hoping the neatness would relay her formality. ‘I haven’t turned it on yet either.’ “That’s very considerate of you. Thank you Sarah.” Wendy said, using a hand to stroke Sarah’s head softly before starting to eat her sandwich. Sarah laid against Wendy as the room entered a state of calm. The heartbeat she heard and slightly felt within Wendy was strong, loud. The slowness of that heartbeat made her realize more differences between them. Where her own heart beat slightly more than once a second, Wendy’s seemed to be slower. She entertained herself mildly with guessing how many times it beat in a minute and estimated it was about 40. She then used a clock that hung on the kitchen wall to estimate it, only to frown as she noticed the seconds seem to be just a bit longer than she was used to. <I always counted slowly, and it’s matched my regular counting rhythm. I was always off by at least a second or two just trying to time ten seconds… and that’s 12 beats in 15 seconds… So they must have a slower heartrate. Makes sense if they’re bigger. A lot of things that are smaller have faster heart rates than bigger things.> Sarah mused, stifling a sudden urge to yawn before she noted half a minute passed. <26 heartbeats at half a minute, that makes her have a heartbeat of around 52. That’s way different than my guess.> Sarah frowned as she tried to picture what would cause the difference when she started to realize something odd about this scenario. She twisted her head upward to look at Wendy. Wendy paused her eating as she held her plate out of the way when she noticed. “Everything ok Sarah?” Wendy asked. Sarah shrugged, looking back toward the island counter as she tried to piece together what felt so odd about this. <The home is calm, everyone’s going about their business, I’m relatively safe… so why do i feel odd?> She mulled that phrase over for another couple of minutes before it hit her. <Oh… I feel odd because this place feels safe. I dealt with charles and other bad situations for so long, safe feels strange. Huh… that is weird.> Sarah decided not to deal with that particular realization and instead grabbed her notebook and started to write in view of Wendy. ‘Please don’t forget to talk about why you picked some of the clothes and diapers without asking me what I wanted. I’ll wait for after you finish eating, of course.’ “Don’t worry little kit, I haven’t forgotten.” Wendy said after she swallowed her latest mouthful. Only a few minutes later, Wendy shifted as she placed her now-empty plate onto the coffee table away from the electronics and reached down to lift Sarah up as Wendy sat upright and then placed Sarah on her lap. “Let’s start by making comparisons with what you know, then we’ll cover how things are here, and then we’ll explain what we’re doing differently with you. Sound good?” Sarah nodded, feeling like this preamble wasn’t going to be necessary, but she resolved to be patient and hear them out anyway. “On earth, parents of children are expected to make decisions for their children, just like we do.” Wendy started her explanation. “Children don’t always know what they want or need to be healthy and grow up to be productive members of society, nearly always needing to be taught what’s right and wrong, how to be selfless, and so on. Obviously you are not a child, but you understand where we’re starting from. “Littles, whether they’re human or our children, have some ability to interact, socialize, and make decisions, but for the most part, we’re seen as the adults who need to make the decisions for you. Some days a little might choose their clothes, what diaper they’re wearing, but we still choose when you go on errands with us, go to the park, go to the beach, have a play-date, all of those things.” Wendy hesitated briefly before moving to the next step of her explanation, “Some humans are ‘regressed’, where they go through simple treatments that undo some of their higher level thinking. It’s supposed to be optional, but it’s widely accessible enough that it can be done without their knowledge or consent. When the adoption is finished, the fursons who adopt the human have just as much legal power as a parent making a medical decision for their child. They will be blocked from future adoptions and likely fined or penalized, but only because most of the time, the human can’t reach an agency in time to prevent the process.” <That’s horrible!> Sarah’s face scrunched as her eyes opened wide, lips pursing slightly. She grabbed her notepad and started writing as fast as her talent would permit despite not having the practice for finer controls. ‘That sounds entirely unethical, I don’t want anything like that and steps should be taken to prevent others from going through with that!’ “I understand kit, I do.” Wendy said, moving to have a one armed hug against her torso, keeping it light so if Sarah resisted the attempt to comfort her, she could. Sarah resisted only slightly, letting herself be pressed into their side, but sat upright when she was able, “It’s been a legal gray area for a while. The first dozen years of our world adopting humans were very-” Wendy hesitated before continuing, “chaotic. A lot of furs were adopting to have a way to satiate their need for child-rearing and there’s something about humanity that takes hold of that urge and inflates it some while also satiating it more than most methods we’ve encountered so far. Naturally, the more it happened, the more we found some humans who had natural resistances to the regression process and more parents who did care about their children enough to advocate for their wellbeing. That led to some of the human protection laws in place in the last twenty years.” ‘I’m sorry, you’re telling me that you all adopt humans - - - as a form of birth control?’ Sarah wrote, using dashes to indicate her pause, her mouth turning to one side and smiling slightly as she then added to make her sarcastic point, ‘Really?? Really.? Also how is this relating to the ‘picking my clothes and diapers’ question?’ “I’m getting there, bear with me.” Wendy said, then went back to her explaining. “Because the change is recent, there’s still plenty of people who equate ‘dependant human’ with ‘regressed human’ and adoption rates for unregressed humans who don’t want to regress are lower than the demand for regressed humans. For the sake of argument, we see about two regressed humans for every 1 unregressed human in Beryllia alone and far more in many other nations who don’t agree with our more ‘progressive’ ideas… Now for some audience participation! What expectations can you expect that society to have on the fursons and on humans?” Sarah raised one of her eyebrows skeptically at Wendy, but she only smiled back and gestured at the notepad. Sarah shrugged and started a fresh page. She wrote the question, paraphrased at the top as ‘societal expectations on majority regressed human pop.’, then made a T under it to separate into two columns, labelled fur and human. <Let’s see, furs would have full responsibility for the human, greater decisionmaking, more impact on human’s development, which would also mean the human is to some extent a reflection of the fur in question.> Sarah wrote, trying to keep her wording as concise as she could think of in that moment. <By that logic, humans are seen as incapable, likely emotional or reactive, having invalidated opinions… but also less judgement because of less ability to make those decisions?> “A good list. Not all encompassing but I don’t want you worrying about a full breakdown over an hour. You’re a smart little cookie but you’re not one of my students.” Wendy giggled, trying to use a finger to tickle Sarah’s nose before she caught herself and cleared her throat, returning to the lecture. “Like you listed, humans aren’t really seen as capable. They’re not more than children to a lot of furs, like that rabbit lady we ran into at the store today. The idea of me treating you with equality and respect is strange to them, even if that is how we should be treating our own children when they’re behaving well. Because of those expectations, you have a lot more freedom on clothing and how you behave. You’re not seen as an adult, so if you wear a Bracha Bunch shirt with a Mecha Meyhem diaper and nothing else, no one’s going to think twice and only ask if you like either of those shows or games. At the same time, when you inevitably need to go to a daycare because both Lizzie and I need to work, you aren’t going to get much say in what you get put in. So, leading us back to your question, we know you need to get used to the idea of us sometimes picking something for you to wear without waiting on your input. Because of that, we will be giving you experience with that lack of choice sometimes so you can practice how you will react so you can be heard but also not upset the other furs you may encounter. We’ll try to listen to you when we can, but you need to remember we have the final say and so will any sitters we have to leave you with.” Sarah sat as she thought about what was being told to her, that all too familiar sense of unease creeping over her. <I don’t like this… I get where they’re coming from, and within that societal framework it is a natural conclusion, but it still feels like my ability to make my own decisions has been taken away. Even earlier with the tablet access I had to acquiesce to being under parental limitations just to have it.> Wendy watched as Sarah frowned, staring down at the coffee table leg like it held the secrets of the universe before eventually letting out a sigh and leaning heavily on Wendy’s front, head just under her chest. “Everything all right, kit?” ‘I’m not a kid…’ Sarah wrote as she laid against Wendy, then scratched that out once before writing, ‘It just feels like my arriving in this world has stolen more than my hands and feet and whatever stuff they did inside me. Now I get to worry about how much of my autonomy got stolen on top of the body changes. I’ve been so caught up in my environment changing that I still don’t have a good grasp on what my body went through.’ “Hey, hope I’m not interrupting,” Lizzie said as she approached, having made the ‘small’ bottle of milk for Sarah and handed it off to Wendy, who took it in her free hand. “It’s fine. She should have her lunch and a nap. She’s getting overwhelmed by the sound of things and a nap would do her good.” Wendy said, returning to reading what Sarah had written. “Sarah, I hope you know we did everything we could to get you back what you should have had. When you had no name, we were going to call you Sierra, the name we both wanted to have for our first little we adopted. We have only used your proper name since. We’re listening to you every chance we can and trying to listen to you as an adult, even if a small one. Dr Uldo did a genetic test on you and we did our best to put everything back the way things would have been if you hadn’t been altered in Valis. I promise once you finish healing, we can let you take a good look at yourself to make sure it’s all the way it should be. Sarah nodded, trying to listen closely. <She sounds earnest, and it’s true that in the last couple days they have been trying to treat me like an adult with just a couple exceptions… I really shouldn’t complain. Based on what she told me, this is a suspiciously best-case scenario> “Yeah, you look tired. Let’s get you your lunch and let you settle down for a nap.” Wendy said, bringing the ‘small’ bottle that was as tall as a skinny two-liter bottle up to Sarah’s mouth and held it there. Sarah reluctantly took the offering and started to drink, letting out a sigh to calm herself down. She closed her eyes as she drank slower with each passing moment. <I shouldn’t need a nap, there you go making decisions for me again…> She thought before drinking a few more swallows. <I don’t want to be stuck as a child… right?> Her worries felt harder to hold onto, slipping from the fingers of her mind as the warm body she laid on with its calm, slow heartbeat lulled her into that sense of safety and security until she fell fast asleep.