Little Sherri

I'll chime back in here and note that Bambi has been playing hide-and-seek with me, lately. From Christmas until about the beginning of May, I was wetting with abandon, nearly every night, to the point where I considered changing the algorithm in my supply chain management software (IE, my brain), for how many diapers I burn through in a given period, because I used to reliably count on my overnight diaper also taking me through most of the next day, since I didn't wet consistently, and the volumes were reliably low. But then, after a two week bender that ended on New Years Day, it seemed that I was in the habit of voiding so thoroughly while I slept, that my overnight diaper - which was generally a top-tier product with ample capacity - was buckling under the strain before lunch the next day. So maybe it is the weather, as both @dribblez and @oznl noted. Because since May, I'm back to wetting every second or third night, and, the volumes are lower. Although last night, I took a Crinklz out of service between midnight and 7 AM - the rains came. May was abysmal, though, and so was June, in terms of heat - I didn't open my pool until the third weekend in June. So while it was no longer "winter", I wasn't exactly becoming dehydrated, from the withering heat. I could have stored dairy products safely outdoors, on a couple of those June nights, and many of the May ones.

I've had this happen, thankfully not at work, but I was out walking the dog a while back - probably at least a couple of years ago - and it was a hot day, and I guess I'd been in the diaper I was wearing, for a while, and suddenly, I felt a sensation like snow, or mist was landing on the back of my legs, while I was walking down the street on a dry, sunny evening. I realized that the adhesive or material at one of the leg gathers had let go, and fluff was slowly making its way out, as I walked, and tumbling down my legs from inside my shorts. This was inconvenient, but at least I was close to home when it happened. I also once tore my diaper while squeezing past a dog crate in my room, when the dog was a puppy, and lumps of wet SAP and fluffing trailed across the floor behind me, which I had to clean up, before the dog found them, lest he eat them. My wife was concerned that it was toxic, although I pointed out that we don't put babies to bed wearing bags full of toxic gel that they could potentially get into. She thought maybe adult diapers were different; I said, "Nope, they're just oversized baby diapers."

I had a brief, but enjoyable foray onto my pool deck yesterday, cleaning up after we had a bunch of people over for a barbecue, it being Canada Day, yesterday. The weather was perfect for the gathering - not absurdly hot, as has suddenly become the norm, nor raining, which has also become the norm every second day or so. I mention the after-hours foray, because I conducted it while wearing a t-shirt and a Mega Inspire+. It was a dark night, dry, warm, everyone in my house had gone to bed, and I wanted to gather up towels and empties, and put things in order out there. I'd just changed out of my Active Air "hosting diaper", into something suitable for overnight and into-tomorrow duty (I'm still in it), and I was moving dishes to the kitchen, when it occurred to me that, if I turned off the lights in the kitchen, the pool area became a black hole, as viewed from any distance, or from anywhere well lit. So, instead of going upstairs to get some shorts, I boldly opened the patio door, and walked out into my yard, to tidy up, all while dressed as I prefer - big comfy nappy, big comfy t-shirt. It worked out okay - eventually, the mosquitoes, who are no doubt suffering from the fact that winter only really ended four weeks ago, crashed my one-man nappy party, but I spent about a half hour blissfully walking back and forth, with no "emergency retreat" options at hand, except for maybe donning one of the towels sitting damply on one of the chairs. It felt nice to just "be as a I wanted to be", while also not being in any danger of giving a neighbour PTSD, or offending the sensibilities of passing innocents. In my retirement, I definitely want that ability to do this more often, and ideally, to also feel sun on my ghostly-white skin, so while I'm a long way from looking for another place to live, "private yard" will definitely be on my wish list. The greatest danger I was in, mosquito-born illnesses aside, was stumbling into my pool, or, my wife stumbling into my nocturnal pool party, and wondering if I'd lost my mind. She's well used to seeing me haunting the inside of the house in just my taped-on underpants (and some kind of shirt, 99% of the time), but she hasn't seen me outside the house without something running interference between people's expectations, and my lived reality. But she was exhausted, and stayed in our room, as did the dog, which was danger number two - that he'd realize someone was lurking out there, and sound the alarm, causing someone to turn the pot lights on, and with the click of a switch, I'd be lit up, as though on a fashion runway, my big stupid diaper unmistakable for anything other than what it was, to anyone glancing out their windows at just the right angle to clear the vegetative screens that break up many, but not all, of the sightlines to my neighbour's yards and windows and driveways.

I've been touching on this theme a bit, lately, and I could see someone looking at this from outside, and thinking to themselves, "It's deliberate, he's engineering these situations", but I swear that it's entirely coincidental, or, that the Universe has a plan of some sort, and I am just a cog in that machine. But I'm not particularly religious, so I think it's probably just viscous circumstance, in the end. So, how long has it been since a pair of your pants exploded? I don't mean in the "oh my God I had curry last night and..." sense of the term, I mean the traditional splitting of pants, or in this case shorts, that can happen to anyone, diapered or not? It's been a long time for me. Well, it had been. Now, like lost time injuries in a factory, the calendar gets reset to zero, and it takes a while to get back up to an impressive number. I was helping a friend rebuild part of a deck. We were having to shimmy over, or limbo under, joists, in order to facilitate this, and some of them had the cut-off ends of old nails sticking out of them. This was at that friend's place, let's call him George, and his wife can be Mindy. George and Mindy know I wear diapers - I've discussed this ad nauseum - and they're cool about it and nothing is said and life goes on. So, I wouldn't be overly concerned about, say, a waistline reveal or something like that, although I had a long t-shirt on, anyway, well tucked in under my hanging golf shirt. All the climbing and stooping demanded it - we had other friends dropping in and out. Despite the gymnastics, the shirt had a long tail, and there was no chance it would become untucked enough to expose white plastic to the sunlight, or in this case, white "cloth-like backing" because I was in an Active Air. All was going fine, until the fateful moment when I slid across a beam, and caught one of those mostly-cut-off old nails, right at ground zero. The shorts, already aged, and washed a thousand times, died without making a sound - I just felt a change in the air pressure down below, and reached back to have a feel around... and I was able to make easy contact with exposed diaper, although I had no idea how visible it was. AND, I had to clamber up out of the hole I was standing in, and take a big step up onto a ledge, and walk along it like an iron worker, over to a door, in order to go check the status of my behind, with my eyes in a mirror. "Parden me, folks, I just have to attend to something here..." was all I said, and then my buddy said, "Oh boy, yeah, might be time to retire those..." Mindy said, "I'd offer to sew those, but I think there's nothing left to sew anything to... do you have another pair of shorts? Do you want to borrow a pair from George?" This is where being an experienced diapernaut comes in handy, because of course, I had a spare pair of shorts in the trunk of my car, in my diaper bag, because I always carry something in there - shorts, jeans, a clothing option, in case of a catastrophic loss of containment, and I guess this was such a situation, although not in the conventional sense. The shorts I had were snugger, more athletic in design, than the baggy old cargo shorts that had failed me so completely, but at that point, it hardly mattered, which I realized once I was able to get in front of a mirror - there was a 6-inch tear up the back of my shorts on about a 45-degree angle, and other than if I stood completely still, it yawned sufficiently to expose a good patch of diaper. The diaper being white, maybe, maybe, someone could think to themselves, "those are white boxer shorts", but when the diaper was as wet from sweat as it was from beer that my body was turning into wee, so it was characteristically puffy, and I just knew that nobody seeing what I was seeing, would think anything other than, "Well, that's unfortunate... your pants have split and exposed your nappy..." So, the somewhat snugger than I appreciate athletic shorts from my diaper bag were a welcome retreat from my current situation. I changed my diaper, to relieve some of the puffiness, at least temporarily, and I put my new shorts on, and I returned to the job, and then we drank beer, and discussed the next phase in the operation, and then I went home, but, I'm feeling slightly dumb, I guess, as I view the incident in the rearview mirror. I made this choice, I did this to myself, these are the stupid prizes you get from playing stupid games. But caveat emptor, to anyone reading my babbling and thinking to themselves, "Being in diapers all the time sounds so awesome..." It mostly is awesome, but not always. You have to take the crunchy with the smooth.

I concur with both of the above. I’m trailing a little behind the estimable @oznl in terms of my tenure as a diapernaut, but I’ve been at this for more than 6 years, and, I wore nappies to bed recreationally for a year before that. Bedwetting to the extent that I have to wear them to bed, or I’m courting an Exxon Valdez-grade loss of containment, is still relatively new to me. It finally dawned on me that this was not wishful thinking, maybe a couple of years ago, and had I been typing this a month ago, I’d have been regaling you with m story of now being a chronic and incurable bedwetter, since I drank for about 10 days straight, over Christmas, and never looked back. Except… I’ve gone back to waking up dry, maybe half the time. Perhaps it’s the hot weather. But I don’t think about it, or care, except when I’m reminiscing about it, here. I want to wear diapers to bed, and I do, and sometimes, I need them. my advice is, wear them, pee in them, don’t think too much about it, and after a while, entropy will prevail.

I have a drawer in my dresser for the week’s supply of disposables, and then another drawer in the walk-in closet for cloth diapers and plastic pants. I also have a diaper can, for disposables, in our closet. The diaper drawer gets refilled from the basement, where I have about 10 cases on shelves, in their original boxes and bags. I go “shopping” down there every week or so, to restock my drawer. I also have another drawer for diaper shirts. One thing I’m missing, and it’s sort of a chicken-egg argument, is a diaper pail for cloth diapers. I don’t use them that often, so usually, I rinse them in the shower, and then put them straight in the wash, whereas if I had a diaper pail, maybe I’d wear them more often, because sometimes I just don’t have time to put laundry on, so I’ll wear a disposable instead.

InControl is apparently having a sale starting on June 30th, with 30% off the entire site. I assume this includes disposables - maybe stock up? I’d imagine Rearz will follow suit at some point.

I don’t always wear diapers in public, because I’m not always in public, but I always wear diapers when I’m in public, because I’m 24/7, so does that count as “always”, or as “sometimes”? I’ve had no negative feedback in 6 years, and only a handful of people have become aware. That said, I practice normal levels of discretion - I treat my diaper like underwear, but not like a nuclear secret. At some point, I had to accept that if I’m going to wear diapers all the time, everywhere, then I have to accept that there is a more than zero chance of them being detected. Would I like to publicly wear one? Maybe within the right “public” - maybe camping or visiting with like-minded people. But I wouldn’t set out to inflict “this” on unsuspecting strangers.

I had this exact conversation with my wife last year, when she had a colonoscopy. She said something like, “Do not tie up this bathroom - use another toilet. I can’t be held responsible for what happens if I don’t have a clear runway when I need it.” To which I said, “I have some great diapers you could try…” Her response was not fit to print. Your wife is cooler than mine, @willnotwill!

The cynic in me suspects that you are right, but that the “size 9’s” they’ll create will be 2% larger than the size 8’s that already exist. It’s an arms race where the ammunition is bullshit, but I suspect there is another real reason behind this “peak diaper size” wall we seem to have hit, in addition to the sales of superhero training pants that would be forfeited, if they made diapers that fit 10-12 year-olds at half the cost. I’m betting that the manufacturing equipment they’re using was designed to produce up to size 6 diapers, because that was all that was available, until a few years ago. Which explains why the size 7’s are slightly bigger than size 6’s, and 8’s are indistinguishable from 7’s. 6 used to be the outlier - the volume was in 0 to 4’s and 5’s - lots of 3-year-olds weigh around 30 lbs, and that’s the age most kids start potty training and learning how big kids differ from babies. Most of them can wear size 5’s just fine. So, they’d have to invest in expanded equipment, to make a size 9 diaper that was notably larger than a size 8, and they’d only add a second line if they had the volume expectations to justify it. And that second line would then take sales away from pull-up diaper products that they can sell for twice as much, that probably cost about the same amount to make.

@Sarah_Hillcrest, unfortunately, at least here in Canada, where I reside, the size 8 kid diapers that have made it to the market are not appreciably larger than the size 7's. I have size 7 and size 8 Pampers Swaddlers in my inventory, and I taped them both to my counter top, and broke out the ruler, and then I weighed them on a kitchen scale that goes down to decimals of a gram, and basically, they're the same diaper. I don't have a tension gauge to work with, so maybe you could argue I didn't stretch them perfectly equally, when I measured them, and if I'm being generous, the size 8 diaper was 0.25 inches wider, and no longer, than the size 7. And the scale doesn't lie - I weighed a few of each, and took an average, and the size 8's actually weighed less than the size 7's, on average - only a fraction of a gram, but still. There is definitely not more material in there. Maybe they've upped the SAP content slightly, in order to move the weight rating up to 46+ lbs, from 42, but I think this is all marketing puffery, basically. Someone else launched a size 8, and so all the big players decided to get in the game, but, they didn't want to compete with their own lines of more profitable (and generally less effective) pull-ups, which have been marketed to older and younger kids, for years - this is clearly the arena the manufacturers prefer to invest the most marketing dollars in. Goodnites will now effectively fit almost anyone up to age 20 (XXL), and they are also marketing Pampers Cruisers and other "pull-on" diaper products for babies, trying to walk people away from tabbed diapers. So, we probably won't see a Pampers size 9, or if we do, it will be indistinguishable from size 8. This is partially because size 7 & 8 diapers can already fit kids aged 7-10 - another comparison I did was to take the size chart off of a package of girl's underpants, which showed the waist size for age groups in 2-year increments (2,4,6,8 etc), and I compared that with the measurements I got from the stretched-out baby diapers, and guess what? A Pampers size 7 or 8 could fit practically all 6-year-olds, most 8-year-olds, and some 10-year-olds - their height grows in a somewhat direct proportion to their weight, whereas their waist sizes rise at a lower ratio to their weight so that a 70-lb kid might have a waist not much larger than a 50-lb kid, but they might be quite a bit taller. This demographic - kid who can speak for themselves, and request products that they've seen advertised - is where companies are spending millions on licensing fees for Marvel characters and such - they want 8-year-olds wearing $1-per-pair pull-up diapers, not 50 cent tabbed diapers that last longer than the pull-ups do. And let's face it, most 8-year-olds want that, too, because the marketing has been suggesting that you're not a "big kid" until you can pull on your own diapers, from when they were first aware that their underclothes weren't like mommy's & daddy's. It's a sales pitch to get an older kid to agree to wear a "diaper", as opposed to a "pullup" or "bedtime underpants", or choose your euphemism. Although interestingly, my younger daughter eventually identified that diapers were actually slimmer-fitting than Goodnites, for situations where she didn't want people to be aware of what was under her pajamas. One thing that was interesting is that they put the word "BACK!" on the rear of the Swaddlers size 8's, which most of the other baby diapers do not have on them, suggesting that they are aware that some people might, A) be putting these diapers on themselves, and, B ), they can read a bit. Cuties went in a different direction, and briefly introduced their "Boundless" size 8 tabbed diapers, that were rated to 75 lbs, and probably could have fit people into their teens, or even small adults. The ads targeted handicapped children, as well as able-bodied kids. However, they disappeared almost as soon as they landed - you can still find a spot for them on Amazon, but they have been out of stock since they launched. I suspect the initial market response was effusive, causing them to ask themselves if they had just cannibalized more profitable product lines. Or maybe "Big Diaper" and the FBI shut the down. Or maybe this coincides with their getting the Kirkland diaper contract from Costco, and they decided they needed the production space to fill those giant orders, instead of catering to a relatively small market of kids, and their caregivers, who prefer a real diaper. You can put me in that category, of course, but most of "us" aren't wired like the average bear, on that topic. I stopped wearing diapers to bed when the largest Pampers of the day (1980's) would only fit me with help from Scotch tape, and had I thought of it, I would have gone on a strict diet, in order to be able to still have access to real diapers for a bit longer. But I didn't think of it, and that was right around when my bedwetting was dying of natural causes, anyway, and I walked away from baby diapers, not knowing how good I had it, until they were too far in the rearview mirror to be retrieved. Pampers, Huggies and the likes, would never risk associating their billion-dollar brands with a kink that most people don't understand, so alas, other than unlicensed knock-offs, there will probably never be a Pampers size 10, 12 or 14. I'm sure they know, and don't mind that "we" still buy some of their products - witness the XXL Goodnites enthusiastic embrace from our community - but they won't admit it.

It seems to be part of the deal, unfortunately. If you stand for a bit and "drip dry" before repackaging the equipment, you might be able to mitigate some of this effect. I long ago reconciled myself to mostly being at least somewhat we, although in a good diaper, it's not really very noticeable for the first third of a diaper's life, anyway. But I typically wear 2 - 3 diapers in a 24-hour period, so after the first hour, I'm inevitably a bit damp, and after a few hours, there's wetness. It really only gets on my nerves in the last few hours - sometimes, if I'm wearing a grandiose product, something good for 16+ hours, I might be at hour 10, and start thinking, "It would be nice not to be wet for a while", but I generally try and see it through, if I can, because over time, that saves me a fair bit of money. An exception would be if I find myself unexpectedly having to go somewhere - I don't leave the house in a diaper with more than 8 hours on the clock very often, other than to walk the dog maybe, or to run to the post office. My theory is, they know, anyway - they deliver my diapers.

It has to be different, that's what keeps the beasts fed - if what you bought a couple of years ago looks remotely interchangeable with what's "hot" this year, the dump trucks full of money that are backed up to the fashion alter, will be less full. That's why I'm glad I'm a middle-aged guy - the cargo shorts I bought 5 years ago look exactly like the ones I can buy today. Maybe the ones from 5 years ago are a bit tight, but if I drop some weight, nobody would be the wiser if I wore them golfing. And, I pretty much choose all my lower wardrobe with at least one eye to their camouflage capabilities, because I have a big nappy on under there, and I don't want people making note of that... As to what's on the video's, I did a very fast skip through them, and I did note the one guy wearing the diaper cover in the first one - it would be cool, if I could pull a diaper cover on, and take the train downtown, and be at the height of fashion. The guy in the second one with the giant diaper pin hanging from his blazer - a nod to the ABDL's out there? Other than that, I'd note more than anything, that they seem to be mashing up athletic wear and business wear, so that everyone has high-necked track suits, or shorts, under trench coats, or quasi suit jackets.

Well, after teasing us from May to now, peering at us around corners, and then running away, summer has come into the room in a muscle shirt, and punched us all in the face. It allegedly feels like 46 C here right now - about 110 F. It's goddamn hot. I'm in my office in a diaper and a t-shirt; I generally don't run the A/C in my office nearly as much as the main unit is run (my office has a separate A/C), perhaps to offset a fraction of the carbon footprint my wife generates, when she keeps the house at "see my breath" temperatures, at night. If there's a good breeze, with all the windows open, I can be comfortable in my office at 25 degrees without artificial cooling. But right now, it's like standing in the open door of an oven, up here. My diaper is getting wetter from perspiration than from wee, which my kidneys have largely stopped producing. I had another reminder of the normalization of "this", this morning, when my wife asked me, out of the blue, "When are you organizing your diapers again?" I tend to go on alert status when asked a question like that, because it makes me suspect that she's once again eyeing my corner of the basement, for other uses, and for her, plastic tape-on underpants are like sheets of paper towel - you don't open a new case, until you finish the old case, because there is no functional or aesthetic difference between them. I do engage in some consolidation exercises down there, putting like with like, so that, for example, one remaining bag of Lil' Monsters ends up with 2/3's of a case of another daytime-weight printed diaper, like a Lil' Splash, or a Crinklz. But I won't put a stray sleeve of ABU Little Kings into a case of BeDry Night's, just because there's room in there. They do not occupy the same niche in my ecosystem. "I need to restock my diaper drawer at some point, probably today, because I have to go to (redacted) for work (overnight car trip from where I am). What's up?" "I really want to organize my office, and I need some decent boxes - if you happen to be able to free up a couple, I could use them." "Your wish is my command." So this morning, I put some Active Airs in with some Tena's, and some BeDry EliteCare's in with some BeDry Nights, and I donated a couple of boxes to the cause. That has me thinking of what to do with that shelf space. They did just introduce an XL size of the Rearz Luna Cubs and Omutsu Purrfection line, although I'm not sure I "need" any more absurdly-printed, "sold on their alleged bulk" disposables, with their novelty pricing tariff. I'll probably see if there's a summer sale that I can use to restock my larders more empirically, rather than on impulse. If I'm doing this like a supply chain analyst, and not like a giddy ABDL with a credit card, I'd probably go with some BeDry's, and either some BeDry Nights, or some Mega Inspire+'s. Plus maybe a case of Active Airs. The BeDry's are an 8-10 hour day-weight diaper, and the BeDry Nights or Mega Inspire+'s are close to interchangeable, functionally, as a 12-16 hour overnight or "long day" diaper. The Active Air's work well where reliability and discretion are needed in equal parts, whereas the wee Tena's in my collection are for maximum discretion (IE, at the gym), but with a tradeoff that you are only insured for a couple of hours.

It's a laborious process - I don't know how @AB_DeLane works, but speaking for myself, I can't "dabble" in writing, when I have a few minutes here and there. I don't get into the flow, and I also tend to forget details or insert useless artifacts that I later have to extract, or I write myself into dead ends. I need to immerse myself, in order to be productive, and a chapter can require several hours in maybe a couple of shifts. It can be hard to squeeze sufficient uninterrupted time into a schedule already populated with life's many demands. As we are only paying them with our likes and compliments, we have to be patient.