Little Sherri

That is a disappointing, but appreciated review. I haven't tried them yet. I do have both the BeDry and the BeDry Night in my arsenal, however the BeDry Elitecare looked like an excellent performance-for-the-money point, just based on what Rearz/Incontrol says about them, being that they are "rated" (I use that term advisedly) to 10,000 ml, and the Night is rated to 11,000 ml, and the Elitecare comes in 18% lower per unit ($3.33 vs $3.93 CAD), and 10,000 vs 11,000 ml (-9%) to me is an argument about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin - in practical, active living, I'd be lucky to get 4000 ml in either of them and still be able to do anything other than sit on a towel. In any case, the average human renal output is about 2000 ml a day. I know I'm above that - I like my coffee and I drink water with some frequency - but I'm not 16 pints above the average on a normal day, I reckon. That does not take into account when I go to the pub and drink 2000 ml an hour for three hours... although, strangely, I do not immediately discharge all of that into my diaper, or else I'd be changing myself hourly. There is some lag to the process; you have to familiarize yourself with terms like "euvolemic" and hyper- and hypotonic, and isotonic, to try and discern what's going on, but basically, the kidneys do not allow for massive changes in the concentration of ions in your body fluids. Alcohol is a diuretic, but I also tend to eat salty foods when I drink. I will have to engage in some tactical diaper planning for St. Patrick's day, however, because the place we usually go to, a local Irish pub, becomes standing-room-only by noon on St. Patrick's day, so if you want a table, you're going there for brunch, basically, and then day-drinking yourself into oblivion. There's no way in hell I can take a car that day, unless I plan to abandon it, and there's no way in hell that I won't need a diaper bag with me for what looks like an 8-hour marathon. On a side note, I stood face to face with perhaps the only stranger in my area (that I know of...) who maybe (or probably) knows that I, or someone in my household, wears diapers (other than the garbage man, perhaps). I was sitting up in my office in a Rearz Critter Caboose, having commuted over there in athletic pants and a sweatshirt. The athletic pants were hanging over a railing across the room from me, when someone honked a horn on my driveway. I looked out my window, and saw that a postal vehicle was out front, which explained why my dog went from sleeping to ballistic in a third of a second. The postal lady then went up to the door, because she needed a signature on something. Crap. And they give you no time - you get about three beats to answer, or they leave a notice and drive off, and then you have to trek down to the post office in town, which is only open during bankers hours, to retrieve it. I had no choice... I pulled the athletic pants over my unathletic figure, and big puffy diaper, and jumped out onto the driveway hastily. I felt uncommonly self-conscious, aware as I was of both the bulk, and the low-level sounds of my diaper, under the thin, slightly snug material. And, this lady, whom I recognized as frequently serving our general area, has delivered anonymous, bulky boxes of diapers to my stoop with some regularity. They don't say "XL Baby Pants" on them, but, I kind of think that they know something of what's in there. They have to scan the barcode on the shipping label to confirm they've dropped them off. Both the label, and, I'm sure, the device they use, report, in small print, the package originated at Rearz or Healthwick or Bambino or ABU or wherever. And she does this day in, day out... I know if that were my job, I'd develop theories about what packages contain. I couldn't help myself. Anyway, she was very nice about it, and what she was delivering, at least this time, was not diaper related, it was government mail for my wife. I stood there watching her back out, rather than backing up myself, which would have looked weird, or, turning around and walking away, which would have given her the best (or worst) perspective from which to observe the lumpy topography of my rear, brought to you by Rearz.

You are prescient, sir. This comes into play in the chapter I am writing now. This as well.

I had my "I can't get out of this" moment at a doctor's office last summer, when I had an appointment with a urologist at a downtown teaching hospital. It was my first visit there, and I had no idea what to expect - but, you, uh, put your finger on it, @superabsorbantpolymer - the first thing the guy wanted to do was a prostate exam, and with a resident as an audience. I had chickened out on wearing a full-on diaper to the appointment, but I was in one of those abysmal Depends man-Goodnites, having put it on in the bathroom before going into the waiting room. So when the guy said, okay, lets get those pants off and can I get you up on the examination table, I had no choice but to take down my jeans and pull-up, right in front of them, and climb on up onto the table. He then jammed his finger in a place I've never really had anything jammed before, but, interestingly, he made not one comment on the pull-up. That's not what I was there for - it was related to something endocrine in nature - and so, that was completely off his radar, basically. Not that my story in any way compares to what @Reddy will be dealing with over the next little while, as he hopefully realizes his dream of living in the land of unconscious dribbling, but, when you told your story, I felt compelled to throw mine in. A lot of doctors work in silos - if it's not what you're complaining about, they ignore it.

I'm back. I don't know of that's good news or bad, lol. Work has been incredibly busy lately, and it's been hard to find time to work on this story, as much as I'd love to dive in and spend weeks in this universe - I have so many ideas. Lately, I've mostly been working on this well after hours, when the busyness of my daytime work has created an excuse to stay in my office uninterrupted for a bit in the evening. Note: I've added timestamps to the chapters starting here - I may not stick with them moving forward, as they aren't always necessary, but in this dynamic stage of the narrative, I was otherwise going to have to have my characters looking at the clock and commenting on it with some unusual frequency, because as I switched character perspectives and settings, even I was getting lost, so I figured that you, dear reader, might wonder what was going on. I wanted the timeline to be somewhat realistic and believable, as it expands and contracts, to zoom in on some details and then jet across others at ten thousand feet, so to speak. I appreciate your patience. Chapter 58 – Among Strangers [6:35 PM] Zack waited another quarter of an hour between the dumpsters, in case anyone else decided to come out of the emergency exit he’d escaped through. There were no more ringing bells indicating the opening of the door, but a heavy truck engine started up, unnerving him and causing him to retreat further back between the large iron containers, the surfaces of which bore the scares of many bumps and dings. Eventually, a box truck trundled by the gap, headlights glowing, the cab topped with amber marker lights. Zack froze, but the driver did not look over, as far as he could tell. The light from the sky was completely gone, and only the pale sodium vapour lamps provided any contrast. The far corners of the lot were blue and grey with shadows. The smell between the dumpsters was not the greatest, and Zack fought with himself over a desire to get away from the hospital, or at least, away from the festering trash containers, versus his fear of the unknown, which in this case, meant pretty much any course of action at hand short of going back into the hospital. Where would he go? How would he get there? Could he pilot his scooter around the dark streets of a major city without attracting any attention? And what kind of attention might he encounter? Authorities, intent on returning him to the hospital? Or, possibly worse, strangers? Homeless people? I am a homeless person. Zack felt tears at the corners of his eyes, and willed his eyes to stay dry. I am NOT homeless. I have a home, and it’s with my dad. He took a deep breath, then wished he hadn’t. These things probably have rotting food in them, because nobody eats anything they’re served in a hospital. He smiled ruefully to himself. And diapers. Lots of diapers, probably. They seem to want to diaper everybody in these places. Zack swallowed, and took a tentative rolling step toward the expanse of dark asphalt beyond the corridor between the two bins. He quickly realized that while his scooter wasn’t unusable, it had been damaged in the tumble down the stairs. The brakes felt like they were dragging a little, and to get it to go straight, he had to steer slightly to the right. His knee was stinging, his scuffed palm smarted, and the fractured ankle throbbed a little as well. However, he tried to ignore the feedback from his body, which whispered to him that maybe running away from a building full of doctors and nurses was a bad idea right now, at night, in a strange city. He struck off across the asphalt, hearing a light whir whir whir with each rotation of the front wheel. The sea of black tarmac narrowed down to a two-lane roadway that ran away from the rear of the hospital, and spilled out onto a side street with very few signs of life along it. It seemed like the whole area was behind buildings whose entrances faced other, busier streets. Zack looked back over his shoulder as he maneuvered past an automated arm that prevented vehicles from driving into the parking lot without pressing an intercom button or tapping in a code. There was a camera on a pole above the intercom box, which he decided to avoid looking directly at, although, realistically, he realized that if the search was on for a kid with a broken leg, he would probably be identified as a possible target right away, if anyone was watching the camera feed, regardless of if he gave them a close look at his face, or not. Left or right? Left would take him towards a busier intersecting street that his navigational intuition told him would then cross over the main street that the hospital was on. Going right looked like it would take him past the parking garage entrances, dumpsters, and service entrances of some tall buildings that might be hotels or residential towers, or both. A cat ran out from under a forlorn looking bush that occupied a lone patch of dirt amidst an ocean of asphalt and concrete. It looked at Zack and then bolted into the shadows on the other side of the street. Three white vans sat across from him, silent. The scream of a siren split the air and echoed off of the concrete surfaces around him, causing Zack’s heart to freeze, but as he spun his head, he saw an ambulance race by on the busier street. So, not the police. Not yet, anyway. Although he hadn’t broken any laws… had he? He wasn’t sure. It definitely felt like he was on the other side of the law, though – he knew that back at the Children’s Hospital, a ward of nurses would be on the lookout for him, and behind him, an angry security guard was riding up and down an elevator, probably asking people if they’d seen a kid on a scooter. And Kelly will be on the warpath. He decided to turn left and head towards the busier street, on the theory that he would blend in better with a crowd, or with any group of people, than he would by himself, a kid on a scooter on a dark side street, as the hours grew later. However, on that street, he decided to turn right again, rather than left, thinking that if the search for him was on, they’d probably check up and down the main street a bit, before scouring every possible route of escape. _________ [6:55 PM] Zack half-shuffled, half-rolled for another twenty minutes, until he felt like he’d crossed some kind of invisible border, and was now in another area of the city. There were bars, and closed businesses, and entrances to glittering condo lobbies, as well as eateries and donut shops. The sounds of the hospital were well behind him, and it felt more like an area where people lived, than where they worked. Past a row of darkened business that included a bookstore and a travel agency, Zack encountered a view of the brightly lit interior of a sandwich shop. A couple sat at a table eating, and a lone guy in a blazer sat at a counter, contemplating some kind of wrap. Zack’s stomach growled, and he considered his options, looking in through the window, past his own reflection. The five bucks that lady gave me. It sat like a wad of crumpled paper in his scooter basket. What can you get for $5? Something to eat, and maybe change for a pay phone, or, even better, maybe they’ll let me use their phone. He walked up to the door, and pulled it open, struggling a bit against its desire to close on him as he dragged his scooter inside. An employee of the shop, who looked possibly Greek, or possibly Middle Eastern, stepped out from behind the counter and crossed the dining area with a few large strides, white apron fluttering around him, to hold the door open for Zack. Zack summoned his best I know what I’m doing face, smiled at the man, and scooted up to the counter. “Hello, younk man,” the proprietor said with an accent Zack couldn’t identify, as he resumed his position behind the counter. “What can I get for you tonight?” He rolled the r from for into his you, making it sound like one word. Forrryou. But he sounded friendly. Zack studied the menu on a row of flatscreens behind and above the man, but the options kept changing, so he didn’t have time to really focus long enough to find anything that could fit his budget. The options were weird, too – there were bagels and other sandwiches, but also words in another language – shawarma, falafel, souvlaki, gyros. “Sir,” he said in what he hoped was a confident tone, “have you got anything I can eat, for five bucks? I only have five bucks with me. I, uh, forgot my wallet…” The man smiled down at Zack. How old is this kid? Ten? He took in the casted lower leg, but also, the injured knee that had not been treated, and was still openly weeping blood. “Where are your parents?” Zack’s eyes opened wide, and he swallowed and took a breath. “They’re, uh, at the, uh, the travel agency, and they sent me over to get a snack. We haven’t had time to get dinner yet – they’re booking a trip. A big trip.” “Well, that is exciting – where are you going?” the man asked, arms crossed. “I’m not sure yet – maybe Mexico, or, Africa. Somewhere hot.” The man nodded. “And in the meantime, you are hungry?” Zack nodded back. “What would you like to eat?” “What can I get for five dollars?” “That doesn’t matter. What do you like?” “Can I have, uh…,” Zack studied the pictures rather than the text on the screens. “Can I have like a bagel?” “Certainly, I can prepare a bagel for you. What would you like on it? Lox? Cream cheese? Butter? Any kind of meat?” Zack thought hard. He didn’t know what the hell lox was, and he wasn’t sure if what this guy called crrreamcheese was going to be anything he would recognize. As for meat, again, he wasn’t sure, basically, if it would be weird or not. “Is butter okay?” “Certainly. I will prepare this for you. Do you want it toasted?” “Yes, please.” “And with a drink? Some apple juice, maybe?” Zack nodded. Apple juice was apple juice, he assumed. “Take a seat at one of my tables and I will bring it over to you. Also, I am going to hand you a wet towel, so that you can clean your knee. Did you fall on your way over here from the travel agency?” Zack nodded emphatically. “I didn’t want to interrupt them.” “I understand.” The man turned around and pulled a fat, sesame-seed covered bagel out of a basket below the counter, carrying it over to a perpendicular counter behind him. “How did you hurt your other leg?” “I, uh, I fell at school.” “Playing sports?” “Yes.” “What sport?” “Uh, soccer.” The man furrowed his brow. “You were running for a ball, and you tripped?” Zack nodded. “What position do you play?” “Uh, lots of them, wherever they need me.” “But which do you prefer?” “All of them, really,” Zack said, unsure of what his answer should be. Why didn’t I say baseball?!? The man put the cut bagel onto a metal tray and put it under a broiler, then he pulled a new kitchen rag out of a bag on a lower shelf between two stoves, and he wet it with warm water and rang it out, before handing it to Zack. “Go sit at a table and clean your knee off – otherwise you will scare away my customers,” he said with a wink. Zack took the rag from the man, and wheeled his way over to a table that was as far away from the occupied tables, and from the windows, as he could get – it was over by the entrance to the washroom. He took the rag and pressed it against his knee, wincing as it stung. The warm water wiped away the clotted blood that had dried on top, revealing a series of parallel gouges that reddened again when he pulled the rag away. He cleaned the blood that had run down his shin, wiped his scuffed palm, and then turned the towel over and pressed the clean side against his knee. Please stop bleeding… The man walked over with the toasted bagel on a white ceramic plate, holding a bottle of apple juice in his other hand. He put it down in front of Zack. Zack leaned over the handlebars of his scooter and picked up the crumpled bill, quickly straightening it as best he could, and then he held it out to the man. “No, no, injured soccer players with exotic travel plans do not pay for food in my establishment.” Zack smiled broadly, and dropped the bill back into his basket, before picking up one side of the bagel and taking a bite. It was crusty and buttery and slightly sweet – delicious, really, better than any he’d had at home. “But perhaps we should call your parents at the travel agency? Or wherever they are? My understanding is that the agency is closed, my young friend, and has been for a couple of hours.” Zack swallowed a too-big bite of the delectable bread, and then tried to wash it down with a gulp of apple juice. “Take your time, we are in no rush,” the man said. “Do you have a phone number for your parents?” Zack looked down at the basket on the front of his scooter, and a terrible heaviness formed in the pit of his stomach. The sticky note with dad’s phone number… I left it stuck to the phone at the hospital. He took a breath and blew it out. All the phone numbers he needed were inside his phone, which was, at this moment, safely sitting on a bedside table at a children’s hospital in the suburbs. He didn’t actually know any phone numbers. “I don’t know my dad’s phone number,” Zack whispered. “And I can assume that if I call the travel agency, they will… not be in attendance there?” Zack shook his head solemnly. The door to the sandwich shop opened, and a young Asian couple breezed in, laughing as they looked at a phone together, and leaning on each other. The restaurant owner patted Zack on the shoulder. “Do not worry about it, my young soccer player, eat your food, I can see that you are hungry.” He walked back to the counter to deal with the couple who had come in, and were now studying the varied menu. Zack ate his bagel, but his heart was racing. This guy is going to come back and ask me some more questions, I know it. __________ The man was busy behind the counter, so Zack considered his options. Attempting to slip out of the restaurant unnoticed would be difficult, although he could hope that the guy wouldn’t abandon his post just to chase after some kid he didn’t know. But chase was perhaps an optimistic word. His scooter, in its current state, was not a rapid conveyance. The man, who looked to be in much better shape than the guard at the hospital, could have him by the collar within a few steps. Whether he would do that or not, Zack wasn’t sure, but, one thing he was sure of was that the hour was getting later, and, fleeing into the night again was probably not going to produce better results than the last time he’d done it, a couple of hours before. But, the guy had seen through his travel agency rouse. It wasn’t very well thought out. He was thinking hard now. He tilted his bottle of apple juice, when the ID bracelet on his wrist caught his eye. If he notices this, he’ll know I’m from the hospital. Zack pushed back from his table, balanced on his scooter, and rolled over to the bathroom door. The bathroom was universal, because the small premises only had one, and, thankfully, it had a lock on the inside, and no spring-loaded closing mechanism on it, unlike the front door. So, he was able to easily open it and roll inside, before locking it behind him. He pulled at the bracelet with his other hand, wincing as the strain made his scuffed palm smart, but the bracelet was made of plastic and had a snap through it that had been closed, he guessed, by the nurse who’d put it on him, back when he was newly arrived and dosed with pain medication in the ER at the first hospital. He had no recollection of it. Looking around the bathroom, he noted the serrated edge that ran along the front of the paper towel dispenser. He rolled over to it and reached up, using his other hand to create an unsupported expanse of bracelet that he sawed back and forth across the metal teeth. The bracelet resisted at first, and then split in one quick tear. Just then, there was a knock at the bathroom door. “Youngk man, are you okay in there?” the restaurant owner’s voice inquired. “I’m fine, just using the bathroom,” Zack said cheerfully, then he eyed the toilet. He did need to pee, just slightly, but getting the romper open and excavating down through two layers of diapers would, he felt, leave him exposed, if the guy somehow had a mechanism for getting into his own bathroom, while the door was locked. Which he probably did. Zack remembered back to using a kitchen knife to open the door and surprise Maddy by turning the lights off in their bathroom, when she was taking a shower. Or, he would sneak in and make off with her towel, pajamas and pull-up, leaving her begging him through the bathroom door to bring her something to wear. So, yeah, if he could figure that out when he was nine or ten, this guy could open his bathroom door if he wanted to, lock or no. He tossed the torn bracelet into the toilet and flushed it quickly, watching as it circled, seemed to hesitate for a moment, and then rushed out of the bowl and into the pipes to oblivion. He decided to run the sink for a moment, to contribute to the illusion that he’d used the facilities, and then he rolled over and opened the door. The man was not waiting on the other side, but when he looked across the restaurant, his heart sank through the floor. The Asian couple who were still waiting for their food, and the guy in the blazer who was mostly finished his, were both looking with curiosity at the young, female police officer who was standing at the counter, talking to the restauranteur. Oh Jesus. Zack considered his options, and decided the best one was to sit back down at his table, and drink his juice, and pretend that nothing was amiss. He rolled over to the table, propped it against the edge, and dropped back into his chair. Maybe she’s just grabbing some dinner.

I couldn't open the jpg for some reason. But, certainly, many of the truths that apply to institutional settings do not translate on a household scale. In terms of water, energy and chemicals, there are so many variables that it's nearly impossible to come up with a one-size-fits-all rule of thumb for this. I'm coming up with $1 to $3 a load, with the cost of energy being the most significant variable. If you use electricity to run your dryer and live where energy costs are a factor in your life, use $3. If you dry your diapers in the sun and heat your water with gas, use $1. If you don't have HE equipment, maybe add 35%. For me, at $3 a load... I'd probably be wearing two cloth diaper sets a day, two panties, sometimes throwing a third set in there just because I'm not going to go out on the town in a stale, 50% capacity cloth diaper, even if it has a few more hours of life in it. Let's say 18 diaper changes a week. That would be two loads of laundry for me, realistically - it isn't wise to run diapers in huge loads when they've been sitting for a week, you'll probably end up having to run them again in any case. So, $6 a week... I easily use $6 a day worth of disposables. BUT.... what's my time worth? Let's say I use $50 a week worth of disposables... how long does it take me to do two dedicated loads of laundry, schlepping the diapers up and down, from machine to machine, inevitably turning the dryer on again because they never get completely dry the first time through, folding, putting them away, hang-drying the panties because I don't want them beat up in the dryer... I could easily spend at least a couple of hours a week on that, and possibly more. Do I make more than $25 an hour at my job? Yes. So for me, I'm not sure the reusables win, although they are demonstrably less expensive, if you take my labour out of the equation. A further factor is the possibility that I might end up divorced if I started up a supply chain in my house that processed soggy cloth diapers on any kind of scale, and I'd have to upsize my wardrobe (again) to wear them... your mileage may vary, however.

Yeah, that Select got me. It didn't eat the hem of my shirt this time, but somehow it became so saturated in one area - while still being mostly dry in others - that is precipitated a rivulet of fluid across the inside of my plastic pants. Plastic pants over a disposable can prevent wicking incidents, and, delay leaks somewhat, but, there is no absorbency in there, if you're wearing a plastic-backed disposable, so confining fluid between two sheets of plastic is a loser's game. Ergo, the Select won, and my jeans lost, on the outside edge of my thigh. Sigh. But watch, if I put another one on, it will transform itself into a reliable middle-weight daytime diaper and I'll sit in it and work away for 6 hours with no problems. It's like playing blackjack. I just need to burn through these and be done with them. After that Select betrayed me, I reached for a classic, a Rearz Incontrol Elite Hybrid, which is a Gen 1 super diaper from right after Rearz launched the Incontrol sub-brand. These harken back to when a large diaper was a large diaper - today, Rearz would call this an XL for sure. It fit me generously. The capacity claims back then were generally less hyperbolic, although still mostly unattainable, which makes me wonder why it is necessary, now, to say that any diaper can hold 11000 ml of fluid - as I've said many times before, that's over 24 lbs of fluid, trapped in your underpants. Or, to use a Toronto-area unit of measure, two dead raccoons. When this diaper was built, they claimed "only" 5500 ml of capacity for it - that's still 12 lbs of liquid - but, you could maybe get within striking distance of that, without having to perform gymnastics in a bathtub. Don't get me wrong - you were not going to be going out ballroom dancing, and you probably shouldn't sit down on anything not easily wiped off - but at least you were in the ballpark of possibility. 11000 ml (as their new BeDry Night currently claims) is a moonshot of a promise. The diaper was very comfortable, and lasted 15 hours on me, on a day when I didn't need to go anywhere except out with the dog, under the cover of darkness, in a long jacket. Fair thee well, Elite Hybrid, you were a pal of a diaper. Now, I want to try the BeDry Elitecare, which looks like the spiritual successor to the Elite Hybrid. I just have to make room on my shelf for another case, amidst my 6 months or so of supply, so that my wife doesn't notice it...

I'd imagine you've done an analysis on this, so I'd be curious to hear the results. I have not done any math on this from a household perspective, but I did some work way back in my career than tangentially intersected with the LTC sector, and over there, in the 1990's and early 2000's, they were undergoing a paradigm shift regarding disposable versus cloth diapers, one that had washed over the civilian population two decades earlier. Most of those institutions at one time had a few to several giant laundry machines in their basements - equipment the size of minivans - that were used to launder and dry reusable diapers. The had legions of employees and used thousands of dollars in chemicals, thousands of gallons of water, and untold joules of energy, to blast grandma & grandpa's pin, snap or Velcro-on knickers back to passably white. However, the disposable revolution was underway, and they were obsoleting the giant machines and the army that fed them, in favour of diapers that could be tossed out like tissue paper (and in some cases, that held about as much as tissue paper). The reasoning behind this was that, once the machines, the labour, the water, the chemicals, the energy, and the infection control issues that could arise if the first 6 things didn't all come together perfectly, were factored in, washing hundreds of pounds of diapers a day was actually more expensive than using disposables. The metrics on that differ somewhat if you can, for example, use the sun to dry them, rather than gas or electricity, and if your water comes from a well, rather than being metered into your house at $X per cubic metre. Also, in a household setting, most people don't factor in a dollar value for their time, whereas in an institutional setting, labour is actually the most expensive line item, typically. But human time is human time - we all only get so much of it, unless handling diapers brings you joy, in which case, that in itself is the answer - then, it doesn't have to make economic sense, anymore than raising ferrets, touring Egypt, or paper mache has to make economic sense to be worth doing. But, if we are talking purely dollars and cents, I don't know if disposables are more expensive or not, at a household level. If you're paying for water, soap, bleach, energy, wear & tear on machines, and if you place a dollar value on your time... I'm not sure. I guess a corollary argument would be, what price can you put on the environment, for example, but, there again, it depends... energy, chemicals, water consumption... all these things impact the environment. And are the disposables being thrown down a hole and buried? Are they being burned for heat in a cogeneration plant that then produces electricity? Are the inner linings being composted and the plastic shells being melted and extruded as outdoor furniture? I don't have the answers, I just know that it's not simple to arrive at them.

I'd forgotten about the Elite Hybrid. They're a great diaper, very comfortable, with tabs that hold forever. They're from the "before times", when Rearz didn't make fantastical claims about capacity, so they were rated for something like 7500 ml - it might have even been 5500 at the time. Whereas the BeDry Night is rated for 11000 ml. But keep in mind that 7500 ml is approximately 7.5 KG, IE, 16.5 LBS of fluid. Take a medium-sized pillow, fully submerge it in a bathtub, and then weigh it - I bet it doesn't weigh a lot more than 16.5 lbs. So asking your underpants to usefully and functionally contain that while you go about your business is a fever dream. Ergo, 11000 ml is uselessly delusional, and what you're actually comparing is, how the diaper fits, how it feels, and how long you can push it before endangering your furniture. On those counts, the old Elite Hybrid holds up very well. They also harken back to a time before Rearz changed up what they consider to be medium, versus large, versus extra large. So, this diaper is a size large, and in fact, I once bought them in medium, and found them to be a bit snug in that size, but not useless. Whereas the size large in the BeDry Night is actually at the limit on me - I can wear them, but the lower tabs are right at the edge of the mesh landing zone, and I could have gone with XL. The BeDry Night starts life as a less puffy product than the Elite Hybrid, feeling more compact under clothing - indeed, I can (and do) wear them during the day, which is remarkable for an 11000 ml (cough cough) diaper. But once they start swelling up, I don't think there is a lot of difference in their level of discretion. Once a BeDry Night hits 50%, I'd better be in big jeans, or I'd better be at home, or else someone using Google Earth might notice my arse as they pan over Ontario. And so it goes with the Elite Hybrid.

I'm in a blast from the past, a Rearz Incontrol Elite Hybrid, now discontinued, supplanted, I think, by the BeDry Elitecare. @oznl calls them "Barrie." I found one in the archives of my inventory and put it on for a lark. I've been wearing the BeDry Night lately and was curious as to how this one would compare.

Well, the family has departed, and other than the dog, I have the place to myself. The unalloyed joy I used to derive from that has been largely euthanized by my 24/7 lifestyle choice... having the place to myself is no longer really a big deal. In fact, I kind of miss them, and they only left a short while ago. I am not going to repeat my experiment from the last time they want away, wherein I resolved to try to use my diapers for everything for a few days, just to gain the experience, since I stand here on my soapbox and pontificate about wearing babies' underpants at least a couple of times a week like I'm some kind of expert. I have enough of that experience, and what it taught me, more than anything else, is that I don't need any more of it. I did not find that degree of "freedom" to be convenient; the cleanup process imposes fairly industrial requirements on my civilian infrastructure. I will probably wear cloth diapers a little more freely, though, as I don't have to worry about anyone finding them, or any absurdly printed plastic pants, in the laundry, and in fact, I don't even need to dry the plastic pants - I can just rinse them and put them on a radiator. The one constraint there is that I need to choose my moments to allow for enough runway to make it worthwhile. A cloth diaper is a commitment - I don't want to put one on in the morning if I'm going to be leaving the house in the afternoon to get lunch, or to go shopping, or whatever. If I'm going to wear cloth and clean cloth and dry cloth, then I want like 15 hours out of them - they have to save me at least one disposable's life-equivalence. As I noted before, I did manage this past weekend to push through my illogical bashfulness and go about a good part of a day wearing cloth, including in front of my wife, and they are lovely to be in, at least at first - eventually, you do tend to take on the aura of an untended toddler, no matter how sterile the diaper was when you put it on. Disposables have them beat there, or at least the good ones do. Right now, I'm in plastic pants and a Rearz Select - I fell asleep in bed last night waiting for my wife to finish in the bathroom, and when I woke up at 2 AM in my mostly-saturated Daydreamer, lying on top of the covers, I was too lazy to go change, and so I made up an excuse to myself that I didn't want to disturb the dog, and I pulled the blankets up over myself and went back to sleep. This morning, that Daydreamer was at the end of its REM cycle, and even if it might have taken another wetting or two, it smelled stale, and the last thing I want to do is kick off a Monday with a good bout of diaper rash, so I ended the Dream. But, I was thinking at the time that I might have to run an errand this afternoon (the need for which has since been obviated), so what I needed was a fill-in diaper, to get me through the morning and part of the afternoon, before I would put on something fresh for my foray into the world, that I could then wear until bedtime, more or less. So, I reached for the treasonous but cheap Rearz Selects, and put on plastic pants, this time, the lessons of the past being fresh enough in my mind to still influence my behaviour. No shirt hem wicking or thigh leaking this time, Select, or at least, not unless I really court it.

You did a great job explaining that. I sort of understood how this worked before, but I actually think I understand it better now. Maybe I'll get you to explain some other things I thought I knew to me as well... my wife? It's interesting how, via evolution in completely separate ecosystems, we all arrived at the same destination, more or less, somewhat like all the various species that employ some version of venom, although they branched off from each other long before they became venomous, and they were geographically isolated for millions of years after the continental band broke up. Yet serpents, lizards, insects and even a couple of mammals, all came up with some version of a chemical weapon delivered by a fang or spur. I very much recall the experiments I conducted, cutting leg holes into those wonderfully heavy white plastic shopping bags - were they better off both being entirely horizontal, or cut upward on an angle? Narrow or wide? I liked the sort of "bikini" upward slant of a real diaper, but that reduced the side coverage and made the bag a lot more likely to split, as it channeled the stretching forces to one point. Some stores gave out plain white bags, and those were coveted, but the store closest to us had a branded bag with a big red D on it (for Dominion, later to become A&P, and then, Metro). I would turn the bag inside out because I preferred the plain white look - no real diaper had a big red D on it. However, I became vexed by the transference of the ink from the red D to the white pillow case that I was using as a diaper - I would will stuff the pillow case with layered towels, and the nice thing about that setup was, the pillow case was white, so the colours of the towels didn't matter. I was a purist. I had been used to having a box of white plastic diapers entirely at my disposal for years, so being forced into DIY diapers meant anything I could come up with was substandard. Later, the gauge of the plastic declined, and the bags were much more prone to splitting. This also coincided, I am sure, with an increase in my height and weight, as I transformed from a child to a teenager, and I moved from shopping bags, over to doubled up kitchen trash bags where were baggy and loose on my form, except for at the legs, because I could control the size of that opening. One brand had a drawstring built into it at the waist, which was convenient, but they were really big, whereas another coveted brand were exactly the right size but did not have the drawstring. I had little to no control over what garbage bags we ended up with, however, so it was sheer luck when the right ones came through the door with the shopping. The one item that I had to procure independently was diaper pins, which were available at the drug store at the end of our street. I would save up my allowance money, and then slink up there, blood pounding in my ears, like I was buying narcotics, handing over $3.79 or whatever it was, for a cardboard card with a few proper diaper pins laminated to it. My mom bought safety pins for her sewing kit, but the gauge and size of them were inadequate for securing a diaper. Presumably, at one point, we had them in stock, but by the time I went searching for them, they had been used for other things, or discarded. I did find a cache of my sister's plastic pants in a bag in the back of the linen closet, but all but one of them were too small for me to use. There was one pair of milky white plastic pants with pink elastics that I could stretch over my frame, but they still didn't work very well, because they barely fit on me and absolutely would not fit over a diaper, unless I made one using a single towel that was more in line dimensionally with pinned on knickers, and could absorb about as much.

That's an interesting thought. I have had a lot on my mind this week, and not a lot of it had anything to do with whether or not I would wet the bed, or, diapers in general. They were just kind of a background process - I wore them, wet them, and replaced them responsibly, but I didn't give it a lot of thought. I had a team of colleagues in the area and we did some site visits in tandem that, added up, constitute more time with my workmates and more time on site in the last week, than I experienced in the previous 3 months. So maybe not thinking about bedwetting is the key to bedwetting. That, and drinking more. I think I may be the man for this assignment... Every once in a while. Most of the time, if they comment, it is entirely of their own accord - if I ask my wife if my diaper is visible under a particular outfit, I'm just as likely to get a potshot as I am to get usable feedback, so I don't tend to invite that unless I really need an opinion. For example, with dressy clothes for work or social functions, or, if I've bought something new, I might ask my them if "this looks okay" or if I can "get away with wearing this." A couple of times my wife has suggested wearing one of "your bodysuit thingies" (a onesie), for example. I don't often take my wife or either of my daughters out shopping for clothing with me, because our philosophies and objectives around that activity are entirely discordant. I like to go to the first place I think will have the thing I need, buy it in the size I know fits me, generally not try it on, and walk out of there, pronto. The exception to this are things that I know will need to be fitted, such as suits, or, if I'm on the ragged edge of a size, I might try a couple of sizes out over a realistic diaper, just to make sure I'm not fooling myself into believing that I've slimmed down enough to wear something that I will later regret buying. But I do that in the privacy of the dressing room. They like to go to 20 different places, try everything on, quite possibly buy nothing, and then go back another day and try stuff on again a few times, before buying it. They have taken me shopping for things before, and I'll put up with modeling a couple of items, but I'd rather be dragged behind wild horses than spend a day traipsing through a mall and looking at myself in a mirror repeatedly. On another topic, I am, I guess I could say, proud of myself today... I've spent the day in a cloth diaper and (printed) plastic pants. I am trying to push through my squeamishness about wearing them in front of my wife, although for the most part, I have been clothed. She did see me in them this morning when I was brushing my teeth, and later, I changed out of pajama pants and into jeans in our room while she was chatting to me about an upcoming trip. After that, I was sorting clothes and trying to figure out what could go away for the summer (on the probably incorrect assumption that winter weather is nearly over for us), and what could be donated or burned. During that process, she was coming and going from our room. One unanticipated side effect of being "the diapered one" in the house is that it's become harder to achieve privacy... I guess the general assumption is, I don't need it? If I'm in the shower or in the washroom with the door closed, usually I will get at least a knock before the door is opened, but in my room, no such courtesy is extended. Maybe it's because my kids and my wife are female, and so they don't worry about privacy much among themselves. But, whereas I would be loath to throw open one of my kids' bedroom doors without knocking and getting an affirmative response, they just toss the door open into our room all the time. Or, as happened today, my wife throws the door open and goes walking out without closing it behind her. I was trying shorts on and sorting them according to if they fit or would likely fit in the near future, or if they should be relegated back into long-term storage, and was in a t-shirt and plastic pants, when she left the room to go get something from our guest bedroom, so I went over to close the door behind her... and nearly came face to face with my daughter, coming down the hall to use our bathroom. Sigh.

This has been a week of business travel, excess coffee consumption, beers or wine with dinner, difficulty falling asleep... and wet nights, intriguingly. I woke up with a wet bum three times this week, and I only have a recollection of one of the occurrences. I recall being woken up feeling like I needed to pee, with that "it's right at the tip" feeling that males of the species get when you're already partially letting it come down (and do let me know if people with anatomically female plumbing get that feeling too... I've never thought to ask). I am not sure of the exact anatomical mechanism of this - I really should study up on my urology so that I can talk knowledgeably about it, but I'm sure many of you could school me. I suspect that some of you are urologists. It would kind of make sense, that people into "this" would get called to that profession. But I digress. I think the internal sphincter, the one that is not under motor neuron control, had agreed to the release, but the other one, which I believe is the external sphincter, the one that my brain control directly, was holding out. So I rolled over onto my back, made sure "Mini-me" was pointed downward, and then drifted back to sleep. The other two times likely went the same way, except that I have no memory of it, any more than I have any memory of moving around in my sleep. I don't think that the executive suites were consulted, but I'm sure that I rolled onto my back to do it, because I didn't leak into the sheets, and all three times, the diapers were gratuitously wet. One was a Mega Barnyard, and two were BeDry nights, if memory serves. I can check my diaper can if I really want to confirm, I guess. So... coffee in the afternoon or evening leads to poor sleep (at least in me), but wine with dinner somewhat counteracts that, although not a lot of wine, because I always had to get up and do it all again the next day, and sometimes also had to drive home after dinner. Somehow, that's the formula for waking up wet. I'll have to attempt a regression analysis and see if I can corelate anything. Maybe it all comes down to wearing black socks - I was in black socks the whole time. I got a funny look from my wife once, when I came home in dress pants over a slim diaper - a Tranquility ATN - that I had been in for a few hours, and I went up to my bedroom to change, and I realized I had nowhere else to be, so I put on a Rearz Mega Barnyard but then just pulled the same pants back on, because I needed to get back to my desk and finish some notes before I forgot what I'd seen. I walked into the kitchen and grabbed a glass of water, wearing dress pants and a golf shirt (it's been decently warm for Canada in March), and that incongruously big, puffy diaper was bulging all over the place under the relatively thin, tan pant material. She raised her eyebrows and said "You wore that?!?", and I didn't immediately clue in to what she was referring to, thinking she meant that something was wrong with my shirt or something. "What? What's the problem?" I inquired, and then my daughter, who was at the sink said, "Your gyatt, dad - she means your gyatt." I have had teenaged daughters long enough to know that "gyatt" is slang for your butt, or at least, it's a word they say to express surprise or admiration for a large butt, so I realized that they were talking, at least tangentially, about my diaper. "Ah, no, I just got changed, I didn't wear this to the meeting."

This is an excerpt directly from my childhood as well. It's interesting how frequently something like this features in the biographies of people in this arena. I grew up in disposables most of the time, although I have a recollection of wearing cloth diapers, and for a long time, including my first couple of years here, I believed that I wore them a significant portion of the time - let's say a third or half of the time I spent in diapers. But a chat with my mom a few years back disabused me of that notion - she said that she didn't like cloth diapers and only put me in them if she was out of disposables - apparently the largest size was sometimes harder to find, and they got them at a discount because my dad worked for a company that distributed them to department stores, so if it came to paying full pop for a case of diapers, or going cloth for a few days, cloth won out. But it is representative of the impact cloth diapers had on my psyche, that in the disjointed cinematic universe of my early memories, they featured disproportionately. I'm still weird about wearing cloth diapers in front of my wife, whereas I'm not shy about being in a disposable at all. After I outgrew wearing diapers for "legitimate" reasons, and my parents stopped buying them for me, I realized that I still wanted them very badly, but obviously, I couldn't put diapers on my Christmas list, so I took to making my own out of towels and pillow cases, and handcrafting plastic pants out of white shopping bags or garbage bags.

Wearing them for the last 5 years has turned down the volume on that part of my psyche, but not completely euthanized it. I actually think that part of this 24/7 "mission" was to normalize this to the point where it was just a background pleasantness, like being outside on a nice day, not a huge thrill, but, it makes everything else you're doing a bit nicer, it puts a little spring in your step. I still get turned on by wearing a diaper sometimes but it's impossible to be turned on all the time. I had to squeeze between my wife and her desk in order to check a printer cartridge for her, and when I did that, she smacked my diapered butt - that turned me on a bit, not gonna lie.

I prefer diapers, but the Abena L3 is a pretty high-performance pull-up. I'm familiar with it because a relative wears them. I'm not sure if anything short of a cloth diaper is really going to save you from a full offload while Mr. Happy is in the 12 o'clock position, however. A cloth diaper and plastic pants might take that kind of fire and hold up, but even a top-tier ABDL diaper is probably going to spill over if you're standing at attention down there, laying on your tummy, and you throw the valve wide open.

You might try ozone - if you can borrow, buy or rent an ozone generating machine and put it in a confined space with the stuff, it's a potent oxidizer and it tends to accelerate the aging of smells. They're not cheap but not crazy expensive anymore - I think they can be found in the $80 - $100 range for purchase, less for a used one. Mixing hydrogen peroxide with, say, dish soap - something that cuts grease - and putting a spoonful of baking powder in the mix as well might help, IF the surfaces will not be damaged by contact with a liquid. 3% hydrogen peroxide of the type typically used for disinfection generally doesn't bleach inks and dyes, but you might want to test an inconspicuous corner first, to make sure. If the materials stand up to it, then spray it down and let it stand for a while, before spraying it with some hot water and drying with a towel or paper towel. I have not tried a Trest yet but based on what I've read about them, that's impressive! I figured a Trest would be a 12-hour diaper. I like hiking - I usually carry a backpack with water, snacks, and a plastic bag and a spare diaper. I tend to go cloth-backed - the Rearz Active Air is an excellent product for this - and I use lots of diaper cream. I have walked 10+ miles with no problem. I'd love to find somewhere remote enough to hike in just a diaper, but where I live, there is too much probability that I'll traumatize some innocent nature lover when I round a corner in my big diaper on a nice afternoon, and ruin their day...

Well, I'm following your advice. This diaper bag is now my diaper bag. Although I reserve the right to switch to a backpack under certain situations - I don't know that an oversized camo purse is what I want to have over my shoulder when I'm boarding an airplane, or for carting around at, say, a festival or concert or amusement park. But it will be my in-car diaper bag and the one I carry with me if I'm, say, on the road and decide to swap a diaper in a restaurant bathroom. Although, pro tip: car dealership bathrooms are usually pristine, deserted, and often have big trash bins in them. Walk in through the parts department - sales assumes you're there for service, parts assumes you're there for sales. You might even emerge with an espresso.

You've expressed why you feel this can't work for you, so my echoing what everyone else here has said probably won't be of much help, but, for me, going 24/7 was the solution to the problem you describe. I was distracted my diapers, always wanted to wear them, and was at the point where I was sending my family away on vacations and not accompanying them "because of work" or I was extending business trips, just to get some alone time so I could be in my beloved baby pants for more than a few hours or more than one day. And, I wasn't getting a lot of work done while I was wearing them, because all I wanted to do was be in the moment, and be in a diaper. I've been 24/7 for coming up on 5 years now, and that solved my problem - there is no way you can be continually distracted by anything for that long. I no longer try to engineer time away from my family, and I regularly work 8 - 12 hour days, quite productively, wearing just a diaper and a golf shirt (I work from home a lot). This really was the solution for me. Plus, I get to wear diapers all the time, everywhere, without the ennui that comes with knowing that I have to take them off at some point and walk away. My wife and one of my daughters are going away to visit her parents, and I'm not watching the calendar and counting down the days like a kid at Christmas... now, I kind of wish I was going with them, because I know I'm going to miss having them around.

I've found myself doing this occasionally as well. I was having pints with some friends and actually got up and went to the washroom, just to check how wet my nappy was - I'd been in it for about three to four hours at that point and I simply had no idea how wet it was, other than "somewhat wet." This was during a session where we ended up becoming more serious about our drinking than had been originally intended - a buddy showed up who is going through a separation, and a round of Scotches came into play, and then sure, another IPA... agreed, let's uber back... so sure, another IPA... wait, how wet is this plastic bag I'm sitting in? I've done it other times as well. I, too, have largely attributed it to cognitive decline associated with aging (and drinking), along with habituation to just always being at least a bit damp, and to forgetting about pee incidents the way I forget about the last time I sneezed or any particular breath I've taken in the last half hour. I haven't concluded that I'm wetting myself unknowingly, just carelessly. Although this week I did notice that I'd dripped onto the floor after a shower, and before applying a new nappy - a couple of dime-sized droplets appeared on the tile. That's new. Later attempts to replicate the outcome failed to do so. I seem to have just "hiccupped" a couple of droplets in that instance.

Agreed. I've worn the pink ones but a cute print would be nice. I'm in a Rearz Barnyard right now, comfy diaper. In an all-morning meeting online and this capacious diaper will keep me planted in my chair, come what may.

I never really set out to "achieve" this, and I'm not entirely convinced it's an ongoing thing - I brushed my teeth this morning after taking off my overnight diaper and I didn't drip. That precipitates a funny story, actually, because I slept at a buddy's place last night after getting into some high-octane IPA's. I was in their guest bedroom, and I slept like a rock, and woke up soaked - I was impressed with how wet I was, and I felt around to make sure I hadn't leaked into the sheets anywhere, but I had not. I was very wet almost all the way up the back, so I think I did that thing I do where I rolled onto my back when I was wetting, but I have no recollection of it at all. My diaper, a MegaMax, was very swollen, but the bathroom dedicated to the guest bedroom was being used to store painting supplies, so I would have had to get around ladders and roller poles and trays and buckets of paint, to make use of that room, so I had to pull shorts on and waddle through their main living area to go brush my teeth and get changed in their main washroom, which is right off of their living room. I had gotten up a bit early so I thought I'd have the place to myself, but nope, my buddy's wife was sitting on the couch, reading and drinking tea, in the tomb-silent room. You can probably see where this is going. I was slightly aware of the sounds my diaper was making as I said good morning crossing the room, though more concerned that the bulk of it might be noticeable, so I detoured around their substantial kitchen island, ostensibly to put a glass in their sink, but mostly to put it between me and her. But then, I had to go change my diaper in a bathroom right off the hall, right around the corner from where she was sitting. I went in there and turned on the fan, and then turned a tap on for background noise (and to wash my face), before ever-so-slowly pulling two tabs off on one side, so I could slide the diaper down. I'm usually thankful for those mighty MegaMax tabs, but not this time - it was hard to pull them off quietly. Then, I had to ball it up and put it into a plastic bag, and into my backpack, before putting on a Rearz BeDry (which I'm in now)... man, did unfolding and putting on that diaper sound loud to my ears. I know there were a lot of plasticky noises coming from the bathroom - I just hope that the fan and the running water obscured them, and that if she noticed anything, she assumed that I was manipulating my toiletries and towel out of and into a plastic bag. I had my backpack with me but I elected to carry the bag separately for my return trip across the main room, just to reinforce that I had a plastic bag with me, and let it bounce off my knee as I walked, to disguise any noise coming from my new diaper, which was still a bit stiff, having just been unfolded. Speaking of that backpack, it is my defacto diaper bag these days, but, about an hour ago, I was unexpectedly given a real diaper bag, by my wife. Her and my daughter were pulling suitcases out of the basement, and she started going through a tote of folded up bags that we have down there (my wife keeps everything), looking for a laptop bag for my daughter. What she found in there as well, was a diaper bag that we had used when my kids were still in diapers, and she brought it up to me and said, somewhat jokingly, "Here, I thought you could use this. Remember this bag? I think we bought it when (second daughter) was born, because the one we used for (first daughter) was too small. I used it as a purse for a while, too. Maybe it can be a diaper bag again, hmmm?" I looked at it as she held it up, before taking it from her with a raised eyebrow. It wasn't obviously a diaper bag - it was actually branded "Jeep", of all things, and it was in shades of dun and dark blue, with a camo motif. The top flap of it could be folded over and had doubled-up layer underneath it that allowed it to extend out as a changing pad, which would not be of much use for anyone more than about 30 inches long, but, the pockets inside were big enough for a bin of wipes, baby powder, diaper cream, and the pocket for diapers was huge and closed separately with a zipper - it could conceal two or three decent diaper, easily. I have it on the floor of my bedroom, next to my bed right now. I am considering using it as my in-car diaper bag. It's kind of funny how it has been resurrected. I don't know if my wife was serious or not, but, I might follow her suggestion.

@Snugglebear_69, if you don't mind me asking, are you typically diapered for bed? Or does it depend on the circumstances? If I recall correctly, you aren't 24/7 in them - do you wear them when the mood strikes your wife or your Daddy, or are there specific times when you're generally put in diapers?

Is that a plastic diaper? I'm confused by the tabs - they look like plastic diaper tabs, but I have some Tena's in exactly that colour that are cloth-backed. I don't know if we get plastic Tena diapers here (Canada), but generally, the products we do get from them are not excellent, as you describe them. The breathable ones I have I typically wear to the gym, because they're slim and quiet, but they're only good for a few hours at most.