RocketKid

I'm still making my way through Mistake Fourteen, but just wanted to share this: It's ironic that this is the lewdest academy we've seen so far, with the most insight into all the gaslighting that goes on, but it's also the closest that any of the Academies have come to a consensual power exchange dynamic (between Candies and handlers), even in spite of all the manipulation on Maria's end. It's really a fascinating quagmire of moral relativity and a mixed bag of consent and abuse, honesty and lies.

I've noticed that Classicos and Biancos have gotten a major price hike since new year's, and now cost the same as Teddies.

O-H-I-O Native of the C'bus, OSU alumnus, Buckeye for life, now living in the "Shallow South" in Huntsville, AL

Apologies for bumping this topic by about a month, but I have something to add as well. Like ABC, I have been wearing Wal-Mart's Assurance "maximum protection briefs" at work and in public off and on throughout this year. At first I was disappointed to discover that "Assurance" was no longer the plastic-backed Tyco/Kendall diapers (which I had always found to be a great value for the price), but now cloth-backed diapers that appear to some variety of Prevail. However, I was quickly sold on them, by how quiet and discreet they are, and they can hold up very well if I stuff a Size 5 baby diaper inside as a liner. In addition to the quietness, I quickly came to appreciate the velcro fasteners -- no more worrying about the tapes losing their stickiness at just the wrong time -- although I've found that I have to keep them a little bit loose, because otherwise they have a tendency to "pop" and detach from the side panels while remaining affixed to the front. Unfortunately, it looks like Wal-Mart is starting to phase these out -- not a surprise, seeing as how Depend is now pushing their new gender-specific lines of protective underwear -- and as of July 1 both local stores have stopped stocking them in Medium (they now only carry the Large). So now I'm trying to find a good replacement. In the meantime, I've had to resort to wearing Depend Refastenable Underwear with cotton undies and plastic pants over the top, because they almost always leak out the leg holes, but the plastic pants are very uncomfortable in the summer. I'm in the process of evaluating a bag of Tena Classic Plus, which appear to be intended for institutional use on bedridden individuals (if their placement on Tena's website is any indication), and there are several details they could have done better for active, mobile adults. The cover is the papery-plastic type that cloth-like covers have under their cloth-like covering, but without the cloth-like covering (it isn't fuzzy); I'm rather ambivalent on this point. It can hold a good wetting, but it lacks stand-up leak barriers, and this is especially problematic since the backsheet has the pinprick problem that ultrapampers described above: the backsheet is not waterproof, so the fancy leg elastics are practically worthless, because although they do manage reasonably well to keep wetness from escaping through the openings down the legs, instead of trapping wetness inside the leg gathers until it can get wicked into the padding, the wetness will seep directly through the cover in the unpadded areas of the legs. It wasn't a huge amount of seeping, but it was enough to wet the legbands of the cotton undies I was wearing over top -- and the giveaway was when it was still happening after I made sure that the diaper material was extending 1/4+ inch beyond the openings of the undies. The other thing that gets on my nerves is -- well, if Tena have supposedly switched to velcro tabs, then I must have gotten an older product, because these have narrow little sticky tapes, and a huge (and noisy!) taping panel across the front -- rather like Bambino's taping panel, but a bit taller. I've had to wear cotton briefs and spandex "compression" shorts on top to muffle the sound. To be fair, I haven't had any problems getting the tapes to stay in place, and I've been able to untape and retape several times without any trouble. Still, I get the impression that Tena (or rather, the SCA Personal Care company who have been licensed to use the Tena brand name in the U.S.) have cut corners on this. Like most adult diapers that are not "premium, extended-wear", there are no stand-up leak barriers -- apparently these are absolutely essential in baby diapers, but expensive luxuries in adult products. And I guess it must cost less to slap a huge strip of crinkly plastic on the front than it would cost to put a velcro landing strip there (like Luvs) or put the controversial friction-inducing cloth-like stuff all over the outside. Yay for slightly lower prices. So now I'm back to the drawing board. I'm not really looking for anything "extended wear" -- since one of my objectives is discretion, I don't want to end up smelling like pee, so I change after one wetting. (I have a private area with a locked door where I can change discreetly.) The packaging on the "Assurance" product that I liked says it was distributed by First Quality Retail Services, which makes me think it's some variety of their "Prevail" line, so I might be willing to try that if I can find a vendor that ships in discrete packaging. Otherwise, I'm open to other suggestions. (Um, other than going back to big-kid undies full-time and using that porcelain thing... )

It's not just briefs. I was looking for Depend Boost inserts the other day. Tried Rite-Aid, CVS, even Kroger, and finally as a last resort succumbed to Wal-Mart, which turned out to be the only place that still stocked them. I did notice that everywhere except Wal-Mart, the incontinence shelves were dominated by the pink bags of Poise pads, presumably covering their full spectrum of protection. The remainder of the shelves had (in decreasing order of shelf space) Tena pads and pull-on underpants in both Depend and store-brand, overnight briefs in store-brand and Depend, and finally a few packs of Depend Guards for Men and disposable bed/chair pads. I too got the impression that the focus was on discreet daytime protection from light-to-moderate stress and urge incontinence, mostly for women. The briefs haven't disappeared from the drug-store shelves here yet, but I agree they're dwindling. I wonder if it's just a matter of Wal-Mart cornering the off-line market: their stores can be huge and many have self check-out lanes so it's easier to buy inconspicuously (speaking from personal experience here ), they have a greater selection and lower prices, and their Assurance brand is one of the best mass-market briefs available outside of medical supply stores (granted, that's not saying much), so they're probably making it difficult and/or impractical for other stores in the same area to compete. And I suspect this phenomenon is particular to the U.S. and/or North America. I remember being in France a few years back and seeing a mannequin displaying Molicare pull-ons in the window of a high-street pharmacist (drug store) ; admittedly, they were just pull-on underpants, but still it seemed to me that Europeans are a lot less squeamish about incontinence products than (North) Americans. Edit: oops, I meant Wallyworld was cornering the market, not "corning" it, hehe

I spotted some packs on Aug 23 on a Rite-Aid shelf in Northern Alabama. I didn't buy them though.