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The Importance Of Being Specific By: The Unknown Author I “My Ass Has Grown And My Dreams Have Shrunk” It’s funny that with all the advancements in society and technology that people still fit into weird molds, that they still end up embodying these weirdly specific archetypes that you think is just something you attached to them as a high school student, but then as an adult you see someone else that checks certain imaginary boxes in your head and you assign that person a nickname or descriptor based on that fact. Larry Conrad was the kid in my school who’s mom still cut his hair, we’d laugh at him getting dropped off in the morning, his mother fussing over some unimportant detail about his appearance and blowing him kisses as he stepped out of the car and hurried into the school to get away from the eyes and snickers of his peers. Michelle D’Angelo was the girl that took an inordinately long time to understand the basics of hygiene so she didn’t smell like roofing tar all day when she was on her period. Cameron Lance was saddled with the unfortunate rhyme of ‘Cameron Lance shits his pants’ during a field trip to the zoo in second grade and nearly eradicated the memory until a repeat performance in the lunch room freshman year brought it back to life. Weird is weird, and we as a society, whether we admit it or not, base our assessments on people by what our senses tell us about them when we first encounter them. Am I proud that I laughed at these people? No. Do I think I’m better than them as a person? I did back then, but now, no. Larry Conrad became an internet billionaire, wrote a book and made more money, bought an island and fucked off from society. Michelle D’Angelo just wrapped up filming on the third season of the show she created and directs, a show that everyone is watching and that everyone loves. Cameron Lance, ironically, owns and operates the largest chain of dry cleaning stores in the continental United States and leaned into his shameful past by calling them “Lance Cleans Pants”. I’m not without my own successes, I mean, in comparison I’m average, but I was prom queen and married my prom king a little after graduation. We have three kids, Beckah is our oldest and is nearly done with high school herself and has decided arguing with me is her extracurricular activity of choice when she’s not sneaking out to go party with friends and do God knows what else. Jeramiah is thirteen and has mastered not only computers and pretty much anything digital you put in front of him, but also hiding the articles of clothing he masturbates into in all kinds of fun places around the house. Molly is our youngest at four and is, let’s say, ‘taking her time’ with the whole big girl thing, her room is still decorated the way it’s been since she was born and we’ve gone from training pants to diapers more times than I can count. Jason, my husband, works at the factory he got a job at when he graduated and spends most nights glued to his phone, but when he finally unplugs for the night, then he complains about the younger generation that’s starting pay is almost as high as his and that more and more robots are being installed at the plant and he’s worried they’ll replace him. Once a week I try and get him hard and more often than not he ends up pushing rope inside me for an embarrassingly short amount of time before he finishes and passes out, leaving me to wonder just how I managed to lose control of my life so completely that I’ve ended up as the married mother of three that fingers herself to grocery store romance novels in the tub, the woman that imagines being married to Larry Conrad or Cameron Lance and cries at how pathetic and unsatisfying her life has become. My typical day revolves around getting everyone where they need to go once Jason leaves for work, Beckah rides shotgun with her headphones in, Jeremiah is always holding some kind of device and toiling away on cracking some code or what have you, and Molly is in her car seat looking out the window at the world while I absently wonder if I’ll have time to dig the stretch pant wedgie from my ass before anyone in the general public notices. Because of her delayed potty training, we haven’t been able to get Molly into daycare, something that frustrates me more when the car begins to fill with the odor of a messy diaper and my errands for the day haven’t even begun. The one week out of the year that everything becomes bearable is when the carnival comes to town. I love it because Jason becomes his old romantic self again, winning me a stuffed animal at a cheesy game, holding my hand as we walk beneath the strings of lights while the kids fuck off to the corners of wherever to entertain themselves. Jason loves it because it reminds him of when we were dating, and two of our three kids were conceived on a night the week of the carnival. Beckah loves it because she can sidle up to a carny running one of the rides and score free sips from his flask and maybe some pot. Jeremiah loves it because there’s games and rides, and not because he can see up girl’s skirts on the Ferris Wheel. Molly loves it because she’s a baby, and bright colors and lots of sound are exciting, I could shine a flashlight at her and jingle some keys in her face and she’d probably love it equally if I’m being honest. It was the last night of the carnival and we’d gone every previous night with the desired results of peace and happiness among every member of the family, but tonight was the best night because it was mostly empty. Beckah and Jeremiah had gone off on their own, and Jason had stepped up to take Molly back to the car for a clean diaper and I was sitting on a bench waiting for his return, wondering if I could seduce him into fucking me somewhere moderately secluded after we found Beckah and pawned Molly off onto her for a little while. I got up and wandered a little, walking past the rows of arcade games, claw machines, and sawdust covered pools of vomit when I saw a fortune telling machine with a creepy animatronic Gypsy head inside hovering over a crystal ball. “Wishes granted for $1.50” I read off the gold and ruby colored sign on top of the machine. I smirked and checked my purse, finding exactly six quarters in the small change pocket of my wallet and fit them into the slits on the metal protrusion in the front of the machine before pushing it in and watching as the machine sprung to life. “Madame Zelna is here to grant your wish!” the robot Gypsy declared in a warbly sounding voice that was probably as culturally insensitive as it was technologically impressive for the time period it was made in. The lights inside the glass case Madame Zelna inhabited dimmed and the crystal ball filled with white mist as the robot inside jerked and noisily looked down into it. “Close your eyes and speak your wish and Madame Zelna will make it come true!” she said, sounding like an old drive thru speaker. I didn’t close my eyes at first, but I did look around to make sure no one was nearby to film the middle aged woman about to make a wish at a crappy carnival game or someone lurking in the shadows to rape murder me and when I was satisfied that I was well and truly alone, I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, “I wish I could trade places with my daughter.” I said longingly. “Your wish will be granted at the stroke of midnight!” Madame Zelna proclaimed before launching into a wheezy sounding cackle that ended abruptly when the machine went dark. I chuckled and opened my eyes, patting the glass with my hand, “Thanks a bunch, Madame Z.” I said to the lifeless robot head before I headed back to the bench to wait for Jason. We as humans are very inattentive, so focused on our own things that we fail to see what’s all around us. In my defense, my eyes were closed, so the shooting star that passed over me as I spoke my wish went unnoticed, and I can be forgiven for assuming the fairy gorging himself on discarded cotton candy was a moth, his chuckle going unheard thanks to the distance between us and the difference in our size, the fact that it was exactly seven o’clock on the seventh day of the seventh month was a minor detail that passed by without notice, the point is that a few things happened when I made my wish, and none of them were noticed by me. ********** “God dammit, Hannah!” the distant raised voice of Jason stirred me from my slumber. “What happened?” I asked dreamily as I rolled over and banged my elbow into something I wasn’t expecting to be where my elbow was heading. I opened my eyes and gasped at the tall bars stretching upward around me and the mobile of stuffed stars and rainbows and clouds dangling high above me. Somewhere I heard myself crying, though it was a form of crying I never did, the anguished wailing of someone very young being very scared that someone was yelling at them and they didn’t know why. “Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.” I repeated as I sat up and felt my stomach drop as I looked through the bars at Molly’s room beyond. I pushed the blankets off of myself and shuddered involuntarily at the sight of pink footed pajamas with a distinct bulge in the crotch on my little body, looking at my hands and wiggling my feet to verify that the absolute worst thing in the world had happened. “Jason!” I yelled, more than slightly panicked. “What the hell is happening?” Beckah asked in the hallway. “I don’t know, your mom pissed the bed and now she’s screaming and crying and Molly is yelling my name.” Jason grumbled before he pushed the door of the nursery open and came to the side of the crib. His pajamas were drenched, the smell of pee radiating off of him, “Jason, I made a wish last night to switch places with Beckah but it got messed up and I switched with Molly instead!” I explained, standing up in the crib and holding the bars to steady myself on the mattress. He blinked at me, opened his mouth and then closed it and then looked at me in disbelief, “What?” he asked. I groaned, “I fucked up, honey, but I need you to help me fix it.” I said. He grumbled something about coffee as he sighed and rubbed his temples before turning around and leaving the room. “Hey!” I shouted, rattling the bars angrily. “What’s wrong with Molly?” Beckah asked Jason as he left the room. “Ask her yourself.” Jason grumbled. Beckah poked her head in the doorway a moment later and came over to the crib, “What’s wrong, Molly?” she cooed, letting down the side of the crib and picking me up to set me on her hip. Internally I was mortified at the girl I’d intended to switch with holding me like the baby I now was, “Beckah, it’s me, your mom.” I said, my cheeks burning with shame. Beckah practically dropped me in surprise but managed to regain control of me, holding me away from her so she could look into my eyes, “Mom?” she asked. I repeated my explanation to her and had to endure her laughter as she set me back down on the mattress to keep from actually dropping me as she held her stomach and wiped a tear from her eye, “Why did you want to be a baby?” she asked. “I didn’t!” I argued, “I wanted to switch with you!” I told her. She stopped laughing, “You wanted to be me?” she asked. I nodded softly. “Wait, so I’d be stuck in your body?” she sneered. “Don’t say it like it’s so terrible.” I said, “You’d be an adult!” I offered. She shook her head, “Yeah, but what’s the point when you’re an adult that’s like given up on being hot?” she asked. That hurt. “Hey!” I snapped, “I’m still your mom, Beckah!” I added. She smirked and patted my head condescendingly, “And I’ll bet widdle Mommy needs her diapie changed, doesn’t she?” she cooed. I batted her hand away, “It’s not my fault Molly isn’t potty trained!” I snapped. She put her hands on her hips, “Isn’t it?” she asked. “I mean, you never really tried with her, you just kind of gave up because she didn’t seem interested.” she pointed out. I groaned, “Look, you’re not a mom, you wouldn’t understand.” I sighed. She lifted the side of the crib back up and locked it in place, “You’re obviously cranky because you need more sleep.” she said, a wicked smile on her face, “We’ll see if some more time in your crib doesn’t improve your mood.” she added, heading to the door. “Wait!” I called out, but she was already shutting the door behind her, leaving me alone with an unpleasant clamminess in my diaper. ********* “So, you were so unhappy with your life that you wanted to trade places with your teenage daughter?” Jason asked me later once he’d had his coffee and dealt with our wet bed and calmed Molly me down with a bath and a pacifier and then changed my diaper and dressed me for the day. He’d foregone a diaper for me at my insistence, but Molly’s lack of underwear meant that one of the training pants she’d given up wearing was under the denim shortalls he’d put on me. Beckah was on the couch with Molly me, stroking the girl’s hair as she lay with her head on Beckah’s lap sucking softly on her pacifier, the sight of me being lovingly soothed by my teenage daughter was weird, but the pacifier and the towel she’d laid out beneath Molly me to avoid ruining the couch were making my head spin. “How was I supposed to know the wish would come true!?” I exclaimed. He shook his head, “The point is that you wanted to be someone else, Hannah.” he said calmly, “I want to know why.” he added. I chewed my lip softly, “I don’t know,” I said, “I miss being young and hot and partying.” I said, avoiding talking about sex with my four year old daughter’s voice and my teenage daughter present. He sighed, “Well, you’ve fucked everything up six ways from Sunday, Hannah.” he said, “First, Molly is stuck in your body and that means that I need to go get adult diapers for her so we’re not living in a piss and shit stained house until we can fix this.” he said, “Then, I need to come up with some excuse for work that allows me to be a stay at home dad to my baby brained wife and my adult brained baby daughter.” he continued. “I can stay home and watch them, Daddy.” Beckah offered. I shook my head, “No, you need to go to school, young lady.” I said, not realizing how ridiculous my toddler voice sounded trying to be authoritative. “Actually, I have the credits I need to graduate already, and I’m sure a call from Daddy about a family emergency would allow me to miss the rest of the year without any issue.” Beckah explained. “Then you can keep going to work and I can make sure Jeremiah gets to school and that the babies are taken care of.” she explained to Jason, smiling at me when she said ‘babies’. “I’m not a baby!” I reminded her. Jason sighed, “Alright, I’ll call the school and tell them your mother had some kind of stroke or mental breakdown or something so that if someone comes by to check they’re not surprised to find her in diapers carrying on like a four year old.” he explained. I fumed at being left out of the discussion, “Don’t I get a say in any of this?!” I yelled. Jason shot me a glare that made my blood run cold and my training panties run warm, “No.” he said simply, “You didn’t include me or Beckah in your little wish making decision, so we’re not including you in this.” he explained. “You’re Molly now, and until we can figure out how to fix this you’ll be treated exactly as she was.” he added. I looked at him in stunned silence and then at Beckah who merely smiled at me in the most sincere looking insincere smile I’d ever seen. “I think it would be best for Jeremiah if he didn’t know about the wish and the switch.” Jason said, “I’ll make up a story to explain why his mother is behaving like a baby, but you need to act like Molly around him, is that clear?” he asked. “I can’t believe what I’m hearing, you want me to pretend to be a baby?” I asked incredulously. He nodded, “I do.” he said simply, downing the rest of his coffee and setting the cup on the table, “You’ve turned enough lives upside down, Hannah, spare Jeremiah the weirdness that our life has become and pray that Molly isn’t permanently scarred because of this.” he added. The small dribble of pee that had escaped me when glared at me was cooling rapidly and I didn’t look forward to Beckah discovering my accident, but Jason was standing and going to collect his keys and wallet from the bowl by the door. “I’ll be back as soon as I can with the diapers, do your best, Becks.” he said before heading out the door. Like a cat that ate a canary, Beckah turned and smiled at me, “I suppose I should make breakfast for my hungry girl’s, huh?” she asked in that bubbly babytalk voice we all used with Molly. I watched as she sat Molly me up and took her by the hand and led her to the table where I was already seated in Molly’s highchair, my blush at having to endure the conversation that had just concluded while seated in a highchair and now with damp training panties had almost subsided until I watched Molly me be sat in a chair by Beckah and kissed on the top of her head as she sucked her pacifier and my cheeks were burning hot once more. “I know you probably think I’m going to abuse you or something.” Beckah said as she got out the eggs from the fridge. I shook my head, “No, why would you think that?” I asked. She turned and looked at me, “Because you think I’m all about partying and fucking guys or something.” she said, “That’s why you wanted to be me, right?” she asked. “I don’t-” I started to say. “Doesn’t matter!” she cheerfully interrupted, “What matters is that I’m going to show you how wrong about me you were.” she said as she got out the orange juice and filled two sippy cups up and screwed on the tops before bringing them to the table and setting them in front of myself and Molly me. “Can’t I have a normal glass?” I protested. “If you can’t have it when Jeremiah is here then you can’t have it when he isn’t.” she said as she started cracking eggs to make breakfast. “I’m going to show you that Molly is ready to be a big girl and potty train her, or you, you know what I mean, and you’re going to see that everything runs smoothly with your hot, smart, capable daughter at the wheel.” she explained. I sighed and watched Molly me pick up her sippy cup with both hands and lean back in her chair to guzzle her juice and picked up my own sippy cup and started sucking juice down, secretly relieved that Beckah wasn’t planning to humiliate me while I was stuck in Molly’s body, I just had to hope that I didn’t have to do anything to humiliating to pass off that I was Molly to Jeremiah. To Be Continued…