Trading Post

If Oregon Trail taught me anything, it's that I will die of dysentery if I go outside. 0/10 would not recommend.

I like the longer format, although I can understand why some people might prefer shorter - it's faster to get caught up. I'd leave it your capable hands, to decide which format best serves the story and characters. 

Leftovers. Pizza from Friday and the beef and noodles from yesterday. 

Is there anyone on this site in Nebraska? I am looking for some friends around the Omaha area.

It's been a week since my last update, I've realized, although I've been tossing comments in here and there, all week. I was in "recovering from travel" mode, dealing with the reality that a week away from the office, somehow generates two weeks worth of catching up, even though I was checking my email every night. I worked until 11 PM one night last week, trying to slay the dragons that were stalking my inbox. I remember fondly, when I was only responsible for my own work.  There haven't been any amazing developments on the "Living in diapers" front, this week, just some notes. I did have a "Oh, no, am I once again on the front lines of indoctrinating another friend!?!" moment, yesterday, while bent over in an undignified position, fishing a wire through an access hole cut into a wall. His wife came down the stairs, to see how we were making out, and she said, "Wow, what a view!", as she descended, referring to my bent-over form, as viewed from behind. This reminded me of the "I got a bit of a show there" comment from Anne, when I was bending over the side of a pickup truck, white plastic underpants soaking up the sunshine, except that Anne is well "in the know" on the topic, whereas these friends are not in that club.  I did a quick mental system check... what was I wearing? Dealing with my disposable underpants, while always an appreciated aspect of my existence, is fairly routine now, an endless (hopefully) parade of choosing a diaper, banana-folding it, anointing it with baby powder, pinning it against a wall or countertop behind me, and taping it on. Sometimes, they run together, and I have to think for a moment, to recall what I'm currently in. Was I wearing a printed diaper? White? And, was she currently looking at a small part of it?  Then, it came back to me... Active Air, white... and a onesie! Yes, definitely a onesie - I'd left the house expecting to be squatting and bending awkwardly. So, she was joking about being faced with the full majesty of my tush... possibly, there would be some unexpected puffiness, but I doubted she had given me more than a passing consideration, before commenting.  I had a funny interaction with my wife this morning - she was getting ready to leave for a meeting, and she was blaming my younger daughter and I for having somehow misplaced a basket of her sorted laundry, even though I always do my laundry separately from her, as she has about 22 different sets of instructions for different materials, whereas all of mine can go into one cycle. So, I hadn't touched her basket of clothes. I couldn't speak for my daughter, but it struck me as unlikely that she had moved them, either - it seemed vastly more plausible that my wife had misplaced them somehow, or thrown a load of sheets on top of what she was looking for.  I said, "What do you need? Do you not have something else you could go with?" To which she said, "Underwear - I'm out of underwear, and I have no interest in any suggestion that I could wear Pampers, by the way..."  Which was fair commentary, I guess, to a guy standing there in t-shirt and a Lil' Squirts, a medium-duty printed plastic diaper. I could have said that my Little Kings look more like Pampers, but I think the humour in that would have been lost on her.  What else... Oh, I invented a new brand of diapers in my sleep this week. You could call my vision either a diaper dream, of sorts, or a glimpse of a grim possible future, however I only recall one detail from it, so I don't know what story arc my subconscious had enrolled me in. All I remember is being in a bed that seemed "medical", in a small room with fake woodgrain furniture in it, and a large window - it seemed like a hospital room. There were other people in the room, but I could not tell you who they were or why they were there. Then, my wife came in, carrying a very large package, the dimensions reminding me of the giant flat of toilet paper you can buy at Costco, which is about three feet by three feet, by maybe 16 or 18 inches in height. The bag was transparent, except for a large blue label on the front of it that said "Viva", and I instantly saw that it was full of white diapers of some sort.  I recalled being happy that she had brought it, but wishing that she wasn't openly carrying what was clearly a package containing about 60 adult diapers, into my room, and then I woke up.  Viva is the name of a transit system in one of the outer suburbs that ring Toronto, not, as far as I know, a brand of diapers, but here we are. It is of some relief that the number of them in the bag suggested that whatever fate had beset me, didn't involve an expectation that I would die, for at least a couple of weeks. If she'd come in carrying one of those store shelf bags of Depends, I would know the end was neigh.  On the other end of the spectrum from Depends, is the Inspire+ that I was wearing, on that day I worked until 11 PM. I'd put it on the night before, probably at about 11 PM, and I woke up in the morning, essentially dry, and went to my office, where I proceeded to stay, for about the next 15 hours - my daughter even brought some dinner over for me. As I got up to waddle out of my office, I noted that it seemed particularly pendulous, and overcome by scientific curiosity, I decided to weigh myself with it on, and then again, with it off. I will redact any reference to my actual weight, that being classified information, but the diaper weighed in at 6.6 lbs, or almost exactly 3 KG. Deduct a couple of hundred grams for the diaper itself, and you arrive at 2.8 litres of fluidic contents, in a diaper "rated" for 11, by the ISO method so popular among feverish marketing types. It didn't leak, it felt incredibly heavy, and it was at... less than a third of its published capability. However, 2.8 litres of output in 24 hours is bang on, for the average person not currently engaged in a Leaving Las Vegas bender, proving once again that all anyone really needs is about 3000 ml of reliable capacity at their disposal. At that point, your diaper will be expanding to indiscreet dimensions, regardless of the technology employed, and you will most likely also be tired of being perpetually damp, for one full rotation of the earth. Looking for a diaper to carry you into a second day of engagement, seems gratuitous.