24/7 startups, and unexpected pitfalls?

[Little Sherri]

This weekend may feature an interesting undertaking with my spouse... despite there being a number of places in the house where her belongings and her influence reign, she's decided that the New Year's tidying should begin with, or at least include, The Demilitarized Diaper Zone. 

Basically, most of the house is hers. She owns the kitchen, she has mastery over the dining and living rooms, she chose the decor in all the bathrooms and the guest bedroom, and, the kids' rooms are essentially subsidiaries that, while separately managed, are wholly owned by her. Our bedroom is 75% her stuff - I get one of the closets, a drawer in the bathroom, and my dresser, plus a towel hook. The linen closet is hers (except for diaper cream and baby powder storage), the front closet is hers, the laundry room is hers (although I do much of the actual laundering), and anything that gets "decorated" outside falls under her command - planters, gardens. 

She also owns 3/4's of the basement, at least in terms of its contents - seasonal decor, cold storage of food, furniture not currently in use but not slated for removal, boxes of the kids' stuff from earlier stages in their lives that she assumes they'll want when they move out (they won't). 

I own the parts of the basement that involve water, combustion, or electricity. I own the garage, although she has a strong military presence there, on an expanding base that the locals resent. I own the pool mechanical shed, but she occupies a good part of it, which the UN is ignoring for political reasons. 

And, ladies and gentlemen, I have a corner of the basement with two heavy duty plastic industrial shelves in it, stacked with cases of diapers. I believe that she's finally noticed the extra cases I brought it, taking advantage of Boxing Day and Black Friday sales to snap up some man-Pampers at a reduced per-unit cost. I'd been hiding them in the garage, almost like in the old days, but then I decided that was dumb, because this is "my house" (well, 10% of it or so), and I should man-up (or toddler-up?) and walk my belongings into my sovereign territory. 

Which I did, of course, under the cover of darkness. I rearranged some things and physically changed the configuration of the shelves a bit, so that my new cases could sit on the top shelf, where there had previously been dead space between cardboard, and the ceiling. In the process, I created a berth for one more cases, dare I say. Maybe someone will run a St. Patrick's day sale. 

My wife smelled something on the air, it would seem, and it was not the diaper I was wearing, it was the new ones in the basement. Her discussion with me on the topic occurred, as these things often do, during the wind-down period when we convene in our bedroom and watch a show that was chosen by her, while I also read a physical book, or random newspaper articles online, because baking contests do not hold much fascination with me. 

Ergo, I was lying (laying? I always wrestle with the past-tense expression of occupying a prone position... let's say I was pronating) in our bed, wearing a soggy Rearz Lil' Monster and a cozy sweater. The ensuing conversation revealed that she believes that diapers are like facial tissue or paper towels, basically... identical in function and interchangeable. 

Wife: "Question: how many boxes of diapers do you think you need? You have, I think, eleven of them."  [Nope... the contents of the totes would add up to about 14... I did not say that out loud].

She continued: "A bunch of them are open, too. How much inventory do you think is reasonable? I can see a few boxes making sense, if there was a sale - I realize you wear them every day. But do you need a dozen boxes, half of them open? Can't you use one up before you open another?"

Hmmm... where to go with this? Do I bring out my spreadsheet and show her the categories I've identified? Printed and white, day and night, plastic and cloth, tapes and hook/loop, effective and less so, gym diapers, daily drivers, special occasion diapers... the only categories I really want to get rid of are ineffective diapers, and ones that don't fit, but I don't appear in those in very often, because, well, they're ineffective and/or don't fit, so they linger stubbornly, like a bottle of bad whiskey at the back of the liquor cabinet. 

Me: "Er, think of them as being more like clothing, then like consumables... I get that there is no point opening another bag of toilet paper, when a bag is already open, because toilet paper is toilet paper, and even if some of it is made by another company, or 3-ply vs 2-ply, or even if it came in different colours, it all serves the same purpose. But is there a point to owning more than one sweater style, more than one type of sock, multiple shoes or purses that all essentially do the same thing? I think you would say yes, obviously, they serve different purposes, one sweater is better for skiing, one works best when it's warmer out, one is dressy and one is for brushing the dog in. So it goes with diapers. Diapers are articles of clothing. Disposable clothing, but clothing none-the-less." 

Wife: "We only ever opened one box of diapers at a time for the kids."

She kind of had me there - there were a couple of baby diaper manufacturers that made things labelled "overnight", but we generally just bought Pampers Cruisers - they worked for all occasions. 

"Okay, yeah, when they were babies, one diaper did fit all occasions. But babies don't care what they wear, they don't care about discretion, they don't tend to go to gyms or business meetings or out drinking. If I were going to adopt the same approach, I would only wear the largest diapers I own, everywhere I go, and everyone would know I'm wearing them. (Eldest) outgrew diapers before appearances mattered to her, but for (Youngest), we started stocking pull-ups for playdates and sleepovers, and diapers for at home... as soon as she started doing more things, she needed more options - cheap diapers we gave to your parents because they changed her every two hours, the size 7' Pampers she could wear all day. Well, I do a hell of a lot more things than she did when she was four or five." 

Now, the truth is that I know some of you here wear one diaper model all the time - people who only buy MegaMax's or BetterDry's or Crinklz. But I don't know how you do that - feel free to chime in. But my feeling is that a lot of you, like me, stock different diapers for different occasions. Maybe not a half-dozen different ones, but... at least a few options. 

Before I said any of that out loud, she wrapped up the conversation by pressing play on her show, and saying "Well let's go look at what you've got down there and figure out where you're overstocked, maybe we can do it this weekend." 

Now, part of me wanted to rebel against that - I don't go picking through the kitchen cabinets, demanding to know why we have 10 bags of icing sugar or why we have 4 different kinds of salt on the go. But, I also have to realize that my openly wearing diapers does affect her life a bit, at least peripherally, so I have opened myself up to this, and, if I want her to be "mostly amicable" to my wandering the house in baby pants, I guess I need to be "mostly amicable" to her scrutinizing them, as long as it doesn't get too invasive. To extend the international relations metaphor I was using earlier, she might get a chance to inspect my nuclear facilities, and I'll read the report that results, but I am a sovereign state, and will not be compelled to subscribe to its recommendations...

Plus, it will be kind of interesting to spend a half hour discussing diaper construction and considerations with someone. I can't say I've ever done that, other than here.  

 

[FretaBWet]

I mostly wear one diaper for daily use, currently Betterdry. I get the desire for printed diapers, they appeal to my AB side but I can't justify the cost. What I have never understood is your desire to buy mega diapers that you can wear for 18 to 24 hours. I realize you aren't the only person who loves doing this and I'm not saying there's anything wrong with it. I don't enjoy 12 hours in a wet diaper. I love wetting them, but after a while I'm ready for a nice dry crinkly one. Wearing one diaper that is half the cost and changing halfway through my day is much more pleasurable to me. As for my AB side, I have AB clothing I can wear with my white daytime diaper or my cloth night diapers that satisfies those desires. I realize your situation is different so you may not want to go to bed with a snap crotch baby print onsie on over your diaper lol.

Hugs,

Freta

[Little Sherri]

29 minutes ago, FretaBWet said:

I don't enjoy 12 hours in a wet diaper.

I hear you on this. I'm generally fine for 12 hours, but by, say, 16 I've often had enough. 

Up here, a BetterDry costs about $2.70 CAD per diaper, which is less than I pay for a Rearz super-diaper on sale - those would generally come in around $3.30 - $3.60 CAD per unit. 

I would have to reacquaint myself with the BetterDry's performance characteristics - it's been a while since I've had one on. But if they are, as you say, a 12-hour diaper, then, really, I could live with that, if they weren't perpetually sold out at my usual diaper vendor. 

I don't very often do 24-hour stints in a diaper - I start to get irritated being damp, and start longing for the embrace of dry, velvety-soft padding as well. Mega diapers make up about a third of what I stock - I reserve them for when I can go a stretch with an obviously enormous diaper on, because the economics of it appeal to me - I might get through 24 hours for $5, using one super diaper and one lightweight. I could mitigate this even more if I wore cloth more often, like you do - I just have to break down the barrier in my mind that inhibits me from wearing them in front of my wife. 

But 2/3's of what I stock are more like what you're describing - daytime weight diapers that are good for 8-10 hours. Rearz printed diapers, which I typically buy on sale, generally run me $2.22 CAD each at 25% off (a typical discount), or $2.90 at their regular price (rarely paid),  and their white diapers in the same capacity range are $2.60 CAD regular, and as low as $2.10 each on sale. 

At least a few days a week, I end up having to run an errand, or we have people over, so it makes more sense to wear a couple of daytime diapers, then it would to waddle around town in a Mega Inspire+. But my frugal side gets excited when I realize the sun is setting and I'm in the same diaper I put on when I went to bed the previous night, although I often don't wet overnight, so its shift might have really started at 7 AM when I got up and made coffee. 

It's coincidental that we're discussing this right now, because I am in fact wearing a Mega Inspire+ that I put on about an hour before bedtime last night, and it's 5:00 PM here. It is appreciably heavy, but still has some runway left - I probably won't push it all the way to 24 hours, because if I leak while I'm sitting in bed reading tonight, my wife will be vexed, but if I change it at, say, 9 PM, my dollar-per-hour burn rate will have been pretty good - I got these for around $3.30. That's 15 cents an hour! 

[Kawaharu]

3 hours ago, FretaBWet said:

I don't enjoy 12 hours in a wet diaper.

I know the feeling because I have often gone 20 to 23 hours in a diaper without a diaper change. I generally can go to a full 12 hours or up to 23 hours in a diaper. I have often gone a full 24 hours in a diaper but that to me is risking a huge skin issue. It's why when my diaper starts to leak or I pooped in them, I often change it immediately and I don't stay in a wet, poopy diaper. It's why I often bulk up my diaper because I want to make sure I can make it through the whole day without a diaper change during the day.

[oznl]

8 hours ago, Little Sherri said:

She continued: "A bunch of them are open, too. How much inventory do you think is reasonable? I can see a few boxes making sense, if there was a sale "

 

Bingo.

8 hours ago, Little Sherri said:

Before I said any of that out loud, she wrapped up the conversation by pressing play on her show, and saying "Well let's go look at what you've got down there and figure out where you're overstocked, maybe we can do it this weekend." 
 

I can only assume her objective is to reclaim real estate for the storage of her junk as opposed to yours.

From a fiscal efficiency standpoint, I see little downside to maintaining a menagerie of different products.  The cost of capital is minimal, storage is a sunk cost, stock shrinkage costs are zero (they will ALL eventually get used) and the capacity to calibrate a diaper to its anticipated duty cycle (which may only be afforded by having a range of diapers to select from) actually maximises product value yield.

Good luck explaining that to her 🤣

I should head off to our own walk-in-robe and survey my beloved’s Imelda-Marcos-Memorial-Shoe-Collection.

4 hours ago, FretaBWet said:

I mostly wear one diaper for daily use, currently Betterdry. I get the desire for printed diapers, they appeal to my AB side but I can't justify the cost. What I have never understood is your desire to buy mega diapers that you can wear for 18 to 24 hours. I realize you aren't the only person who loves doing this and I'm not saying there's anything wrong with it. I don't enjoy 12 hours in a wet diaper. I love wetting them, but after a while I'm ready for a nice dry crinkly one. Wearing one diaper that is half the cost and changing halfway through my day is much more pleasurable to me.

Down here at the arse end of the planet the economics are quite different.  The delta between a BetterDry (USD 2.39 per unit) and an Inspire Mega+ (USD 2.91 per unit) is not wildly different.  Additionally, I've worked out that in my "active" job, I'm ok to pay that premium to avoid leaks.  It's not that I will wear an Inspire Mega for 18 hours (even though I could) but more about the comfort and the security.

Megamax is simply not viable as a 24/7 nappy a they are more than USD3 per unit here.

Looking at switching back to a "3 nappy per day" diet, the economics don't stack up at all and leave me with the logistical nightmare of changing at work.  Downunder, two super-nappies work out cheaper than three run-of-the-mill ones.

Adding to the mix, I'm still seeing reduced BetterDry performance in my most recent carton.

[Little Sherri]

13 hours ago, oznl said:

Adding to the mix, I'm still seeing reduced BetterDry performance in my most recent carton.

I was going to ask @FretaBWet about this, and I'll ask you as well, @oznl - I'd heard some people carping that the quality of the product declined, or had at least become inconsistent. Is this your findings? Coincidental to that, when I decided to do some research on current BetterDry pricing in the now-frozen North (-5 C, allegedly feels like -10 C), for my conversation with Freta, I discovered that they'd launched a BetterDry Day product that was lower capacity, so I was curious as to if people had ended up with those. But we're all diaper academics here - I'm assuming the difference would have been noted. 

Moving on, the next chapter has a Viewer Discretion Advised tag attached to it. You have been warned. 

Last night, I had what can only be described as a diaper nightmare, or diapermare, as I will call it (although that sounds veterinary). I think it was precipitated by an argument with my wife. She was going through a bunch of paperwork related to her taxes, and that can set anyone off, but her approach to it was to park herself in the kitchen, using the table as a sniper's blind to launch high-velocity projectiles at anyone that come within her vision. Both kids were home, and we were all avoiding going into that room, openly talking about it being a hornet's nest in there. But, it became the dinnering hour, and she'd set a trap by making pizza - we had to go in there at some point. I played Mr. Nice Guy, patiently ignoring shot after shot, as the kids dodged and weaved, trying to put away their dishes while keeping objects between them and her, but eventually, I said, hey, I have an idea - we're obviously irritating the crap out of you, but, we need to eat and clean the kitchen... maybe you could take your tax forms to your office and be miserable there? She did not react well to this suggestion. 

I had still had that Mega Inspire+, talked about above, hanging heavily from my hips, now wrapped in plastic pants, out of concern that it might be venting off scents that I had become immune to, so of course my absurdly puffy midsection could have been an inviting target, although credit where credit is due, she did not single out me out as the only diapered person in the room - she was spraying bullets in a egalitarian manner. 

Eventually, we retreated to the living room, and then she complained that we'd abandoned her. The paperwork she was entangled with, by the way, is not due for months. 

BUT, back to the main story. I went and took a shower and binned that heroic white Rearz diaper for a Critter Caboose  (still on), at about the 22 hour mark. Mega indeed. I then crawled into bed, and had a dream about that departed diaper. 

We were playing cards in a friend's basement - I even recognized the friends. We were sitting at a folding card table on folding chairs, however their basement in my dream was tiny, a room not much bigger than the card table, which had a kitchen adjacent to it (as their real, but cavernous basement also does). An arms length from the table, under the stairs, was the bathroom door. 

We were playing cards, I think, or anyway sitting at a card table, when I felt like I needed to drop a load. I was aware that I was diapered, in the dream, but I didn't want to do that, while sitting at the table with my wife and some friends. At first, I tried to ignore the requirement, but then it became apparent that things were going to happen, like it or not. I excused myself, stood up, and right away, something that felt like hot peanut butter surged into my pants. I slammed on the brakes, and I remember thinking, "It won't be that bad, I stopped it, maybe just a bit of an arduous cleanup between the cheeks...". 

I dashed into the bathroom and pulled the door closed, and then immediately began crapping in my pants uncontrollably. So, I dropped my pants, and, mysteriously, straddled the toilet backwards - IE, face to the wall. I then tried to take my diaper off. It was a very large white diaper with blue-tipped tapes, two on each side - I believe it was the Mega Inspire+ I'd been wearing during the firefight in the kitchen. 

I started trying to remove the tabs on the lefthand side, and that's when things really got bad - part of the front cover came off in a big chunk, rendering the tapes useless, and, exposing an area of stuffing the size of, say, a wallet. Aghast, and terrified that the other side would do the same thing, I instead shimmied the righthand side down my leg without opening it - BUT, I was still astride the toilet, and still dispensing Satan's vile peanut butter, which landed on, and in, the already-violated diaper. 

I turned and sat down on the john, finishing the job, but before me was an apocalyptic hellscape - poop on the floor, poop all over the diaper, both inside, and on the cover, poop all over my backside and down my legs... all this, mere feet from my friends and spouse. All I had at hand in the small, two-piece powder bathroom was a quarter roll of toilet paper, and water from the sink. PLUS, there was no way I could put the diaper back on - it was in ruins, not structurally intact, and I didn't have tape. The trash can in the corner of the room was tiny, smaller than a paint can, and would not swallow an adult diaper, shat in or not. 

I was so upset about what was about to happen that felt it in my guts. I'd have to attempt a feeble, non-sanitary clean up of the room and myself, using only toilet paper, which I'd likely run out of - and then I would emerge, commando, smelling of shit, and holding a shredded, large and shitty diaper under my arm like it was an afterthought - "What, this? It's nothing, don't concern yourself with it...", and then I would either have to announce that we were leaving, RIGHT NOW, or, do the right thing under such circumstances, fall on my sward, and say, look, things got away from me in there... I have to run to the car for something, and then I will need paper towels, a plastic bag, and a bottle of disinfectant cleaner, plus about 20 minutes. DO NOT open this door under any circumstances. After that, we are leaving, because I also need a shower..."

THEN, a sliver, a single tiny LED of consciousness within my mind, got suspicious... such tragedy, such destruction, so much shit... had I just blown the bed apart?!? That thought yanked me from the depths of REM sleep like a cable tied to a rocket. I sat up in the darkness, breathing heavily... please, no.. my air sampling even drew the dog's attention. Sniffing things is usually us purview. 

All felt normal below. A slight dampness up front. No obvious viscosity out back. Unconvinced, I stood up. No adhesive clinging resulted, no slickness. Next, I evaluated my intestinal status - had the dream been a grim foreshadowing of a possible future outcome? But there was no bloating, no rumbling evident. 

Relieved, I climbed back into bed, knowing as I did that the dream had been burned into my brain, and I would have no trouble recalling it. Looking back upon it now, I think what I dreamed was an amalgam of three factors: my day in that heavy diaper, the feelings I had when my wife was taking pot shots at us, and, the fact that I'd opened and consumed a beer I had bottled quite a while back, and when I drank it, I wondered... would this give me the shits? But it tasted fine, and it didn't. Except in my dreams, evidently. 

[FretaBWet]

Buying a case of "daytime" Betterdrys is exactly what I did unintentionally. I did notice the difference to my horror the moment I pulled out the first one. I had never seen any posts about there being 2 types of Betterdry tabbed diapers so I just bought the ones that came up first. Mistakes happen and this was a learning experience so it's not the end of the world.

I have a good friend in Kansas City that does not own a car so when she comes for a visit I go pick her up. It's about a 2 1/2 hour drive one way plus whatever time we take at her place. Under normal circumstances, I would wear a Betterdry up there and home with no worries about leaks. I brought her to our home for Christmas and wearing the daytime Betterdrys I felt the need to change when I arrived at her apartment. There is no way I would have trusted wearing it on the trip back. Betterdrys tend to run very small so if you do buy some I would suggest that you keep that in mind.

Hugs,

Freta

[oznl]

6 hours ago, Little Sherri said:

I was going to ask @FretaBWet about this, and I'll ask you as well, @oznl - I'd heard some people carping that the quality of the product declined, or had at least become inconsistent. Is this your findings?

No day weight BetterDry products have to date appeared downunder so no, I did not stumble into the same trap as @FretaBWet

Having said that, I HAVE noticed a slight “cheapening” with my most recent case of BetterDry product.

I will overlook the anecdotal evidence that a much greater portion of the available padding seem to be wet by morning.  This could well be an improvement in wicking.  It’s not a though I’ve noticed any increased leakage but that IS one change.

The prime new anti-social behaviour I’ve noticed is failure of the plastic liner: usually caused by lower tape tension simply ripping the nappy cover open.  This has now happened several times resulting in wet terry-lined trainers and fluffy-duckling yellow padding over the bathroom floor come morning (I tend to use BetterDry overnight).  Related to this, I've experienced some minor crotch leakage due to what appear to be stretching of the outer plastic liner.  Gaps appear at my inner thighs if I'm wearing them upright in the hours before bed and sometimes pee gets out through those gaps later.

A secondary issue is that I’ve noticed occasional padding separating at the front of the nappy.  It seems that once pee soaked, gravity can sometimes overwhelm the padding's ability to retain form.  Again, I can't associate this with any actual leakage so of itself, that may not be a material issue.

Still, it’s like some of the ingredients have been dialed down a fraction in quantity or quality.

They’re still not bad nappies: far from it BUT, this, in conjunction with a series of swingeing price rises has their status in my regular nappy rotation as “under review”.  I will be looking very seriously at the “BeDry” night option from Rearz should it appear on my local market.

[FretaBWet]

@oznl I agree with you about Betterdry being cheapened. On my last case I had lots of issues, probably because I was expecting the same performance I had taken for granted but didn't experience. I know during the summer I was having a lot of issues with the padding completely separating from the backsheet and sliding down into my my crotch. I also had issues with the backsheet tearing at the back of my thighs leaving a trail of Fluff like Hansel and Gretel's breadcrumbs. I had just chalked it up to the heat or the intensity of my activity. Still, my next case will likely be Betterdrys and I'll see how it goes.

Hugs,

Freta

[Diapered Dave]

Little Sherri, regarding your "Diaper Overstock"..... What about your attic?

In our house, the attic access door is in the closet of our bedroom. It doesn't have a fold-down stairway, I need a ladder to get up there. Because of this, I'm the ONLY one who goes up there... A perfect place to stash extra diapers.

[Little Sherri]

On 1/5/2024 at 9:17 PM, Diapered Dave said:

Little Sherri, regarding your "Diaper Overstock"..... What about your attic?

I have a giant attic, although it's not insulated up there, and some of my HVAC equipment occupies it. It probably gets to 50 C and 100% humidity up there at times in the summer, and in the winter, it can be -20 C. I'm not sure what the long-term effect of such conditions would be on tapes and stuffing. Similar to yours, our attic access is through a hatch in the ceiling of a closet, so it would only be me going up there... but, going up there would be inconvenient, as the "floor" is stacked with mounds of insulation and you have to walk on the rafters. I suppose I could stash overstock up there, if I knew I wouldn't need access to it for a while (and that it would not be degraded by the ambient conditions), but, I restock my bedroom diaper drawer on more or less a weekly basis, and I wouldn't want to be climbing up there once a week - I always emerge trailing insulation dust. It would be different if I were trying to hide my trove of diapers from the people that I live with, but that ship has sailed. 

It's almost 2 PM on Sunday and my wife has yet to follow through on her threat to audit my diaper stash. I think I doused some of that fire when I suggested that while we were down there, maybe we should also review the contents of the other 92% of the space... hmmm? 

[oznl]

On 1/6/2024 at 3:16 AM, Little Sherri said:

I turned and sat down on the john, finishing the job, but before me was an apocalyptic hellscape - poop on the floor, poop all over the diaper, both inside, and on the cover, poop all over my backside and down my legs... all this, mere feet from my friends and spouse. All I had at hand in the small, two-piece powder bathroom was a quarter roll of toilet paper, and water from the sink. PLUS, there was no way I could put the diaper back on - it was in ruins, not structurally intact, and I didn't have tape. The trash can in the corner of the room was tiny, smaller than a paint can, and would not swallow an adult diaper, shat in or not.

This particular dream-theme is FAR too closely aligned to one that I've had a few times for me to write it off as co-incidence.

The "breaking bad" moment with respect to a pooped nappy is one that I've dreamed a number of times and it doesn't seem to have any relationship with current gastrointestinal weather. 

I *thought* I'd documented these but frankly, the chronicle is unwieldy to search.  I *did* find an older post whereby I at least described the paradigm.

Curious...

[Little Sherri]

7 hours ago, oznl said:

This particular dream-theme is FAR too closely aligned to one that I've had a few times for me to write it off as co-incidence.

Your description of this phenomenon back in 2022 is an apt one, and I agree, there is something almost Jungian in how closely our experiences align on this. If Jungian archetypes could be hung on dreams. Freud meets Jung. Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together... mass hysteria. 

That was the first Breaking Bad poopy diaper dream I've had. Other ones involved crapping my diaper in bed, and were usually precipitated by intestinal distress signals. The "oh no, my nappy is exposed" dreams, on the other hand, have been numerous, over the years. For a while, they featured me going for drives in my car with no pants on, and then getting into situations where I had to get out of the car, and simply had no choice about it. 

The diaper dreams are coming fast and furious these days; I'm not sure why that is. I had another one last night. Most of it has been lost, but I do remember enough of it to describe this excerpt: we'd arrived at someone's home, a relative or friend that lives elsewhere in the country. I can't figure out who they were - the couple seemed like some amalgam of friends we have who live in an adjacent city, and, an aunt and uncle of mine who have passed away. The house, at least, was very much like the aunt and uncle's house, a place I stayed numerous times when I was a kid, on the East coast of Canada. 

My wife and I walked into their home, I carrying our overnight bags, and she was carrying a cardboard box full of diapers, which was open. The box was identical to the boxes that Pampers came in, in the 1980's, the width and height of a stack of diapers standing on end, with the tear-off strip of cardboard at the upper edge that enabled taking the lid off the box without tearing it apart. But these weren't Pampers - they were plain white plastic disposable diapers, but, some amorphous adult brand. We walked into their living room, and I asked them where we should put them, and they suggested leaving them on the floor outside the bathroom, which was just a few feet down a hall from their main living area and kitchen. I then deposited our bags in a guest bedroom, and reconvened with them in the living room. I sat on a couch and drank something hot - tea, I think - and we talked about how our trip had gone, and my eyes kept going over to the box of diapers on the floor by the bathroom. 

My thoughts went along the lines of "So this is what being completely out in the open feels like, eh? My friends are going to walk up and down that hall all week, watching the number of diapers in that box decline. They know that I'm sitting here, filtering their tea slowly into one of those big white diapers. I needn't worry about bulges or noises or waistline diaper peekaboo's..." 

There was an interesting feeling to the dream, slightly uneasy, but also exciting - it seemed like this was a first for me, openly wearing diapers while staying with friends for a period of time. That's it - there's nothing further to report. 

If I delve into it, I can see where the story's threads come from... and it's slightly uncomfortable to recount that, getting back to Freud, it seems that my wife was playing the role of my mom in the dream. My aunt and uncle were supplanted by our friends, and I was an adult in this dream, but, the scene could have been a recollection of us arriving there as a family when I was 7 or 8 years old. There would have been a cardboard box of diapers, likely open (it was a two day drive...) that would have needed to be put somewhere. Neither my parents, nor my aunt & uncle, would have been so insensitive as to suggest leaving the open box in the hallway in plain sight, but, that box was going to be put in one of the bedroom closets. I wouldn't have worn diapers the entire time I was there - just to bed - but, when I arrived, I would likely have had a diaper on - we'd have been in the car for the last 8 hours or more. We probably would have sat down in the living room, and my parents would have had tea, and my brother, sister and I would have had milk or water, or, rarely in those days, a glass of pop.

I would have been acutely aware of my somewhat damp, plastic-encased derrière, and would have been impatient for the niceties to be dispensed with so that I could go open my suitcase and dig out a pair of underpants, before my cousins (a year-older girl and a two-years-older boy) somehow divined that I had Pampers on under my track pants. I would have sheepishly whispered into my mom's ear, asking her what to do with the diaper I took off, not wanting to deposit it unceremoniously into a publicly accessible trash receptacle. She would have come up with some cloak-and-dagger solution, maybe a plastic bag under the sink that she swore nobody would look inside, or suspect the contents of. 

Meanwhile, here in the real world, my eldest daughter has goon back to school, and my youngest is back to catching the school bus in the morning, leaving herself about eight minutes to get dressed and put makeup on, before dashing out the door with a beverage and a muffin or granola bar in her hand. Thus, I was able to enjoy making coffee and toast this morning, in just a fairly heavy Rearz Barnyard, and a nice fleece sweater. I'm still in that Barnyard, but I may have to go put plastic pants on if I don't want to change it shortly, as it went on just after dinner last night. 

[oznl]

15 hours ago, Little Sherri said:

That was the first Breaking Bad poopy diaper dream I've had.

I've had a series: all memorable.  Highly consistent themes included a runaway-mess-expansion kind of scenario, doomed-to-failure attempts at cleaning or at least concealing and generally being in somebody else's place.  I therefore recognised yours as "one of those" instantly.

I've no idea where they come from but neither does it seem, science.  The "memory consolidation" theory to dreaming seems hardly relevant and the thematic consistency would seem to blow away the "rationalising random brain noise whilst in an altered state of consciousness" school.

One of the more interesting dream theories I've read about is that whereby dreaming is an adaptive trait that our brains use to generalise problems and therefore maximise available solutions.

15 hours ago, Little Sherri said:

If I delve into it, I can see where the story's threads come from... and it's slightly uncomfortable to recount that, getting back to Freud, it seems that my wife was playing the role of my mom in the dream. My aunt and uncle were supplanted by our friends, and I was an adult in this dream, but, the scene could have been a recollection of us arriving there as a family when I was 7 or 8 years old.

I've experienced generational conflation/confusion in dreams.  My children reappear as my siblings and on other occasions, I find my own progeny alongside me, united in sublimation against some kind of shadowy "parent" figure.

I don't think my beloved has ever appeared as my mother but that's no bad thing.  I am now beginning to realise that my relationship with my mother was a bit broken as a kid which might well explain why I am here.

[Little Sherri]

Today marks the first real "snow event" we've had this winter. We got about 10 cm of snow (~4 inches), and then it switched to freezing rain. 4 inches is approaching the tipping point for "It's worth firing up the snow thrower", but it's not quite there yet, and I don't mind the exercise. However the rain made the snow heavier as I went, to the point where I got to "I probably should be using the snow thrower", but, by then, 2/3's of the driveway were done... and was it worth firing up a machine that hasn't been run in 9 months or so, to finish a job I was already well into? I don't know. My shoulders are suggesting "yes" was the right answer, but "no" is what I went with. We might get 8 inches on Friday - I will be firing up the machine for that. 

The shoveling gave me an opportunity to work outdoors for an hour in a comfy MegaMax, under snow pants. There's something nostalgic about wearing a diaper under puffy nylon snow pants with suspenders - it reminds me of childhood to a certain extent, although I don't think I went out dressed that way all that often, because I really didn't wear diapers during the day with any frequency after I was about 4. But I recall being outdoors in snow pants, sledding, and then ending up being invited over to someone else's house - I think maybe one of my sister's friends' houses - and then the mom suggested I should take off my wet snow pants, but I had a diaper on underneath them and sort of froze in panic, because moms back then were omnipotent and mom powers transferred instantly from one to the other with physical custody, so if she didn't want me wearing my damp snow pants in her house... should I run for it? But I believe my sister said something to the effect that I didn't have other clothes on under the snow pants, so they remained in place while I drank my hot chocolate. 

As to why I was out there dressed like that, I have to assume that I had jumped out of bed and straight into my snow pants - maybe it had snowed significantly overnight for the first time, and there was an invitation to join some kids at the local hill, but we had to go RIGHT NOW? I'm not sure. I don't remember. There is an advantage to working or playing outdoors with a diaper on, though - no interruptions, no searching for a bathroom or trudging back home to use one. 

Speaking of bathrooms, it strikes me as ironic that the one person in the house who is always in a diaper is also the one person in the house who is always called upon to fix a clogged toilet. That's like asking a person with no mouth to clean the kitchen. Well, maybe not quite, because I do use the bathroom once a day or so, but, still, my point stands. Everyone else's approach to a clogged toilet is to flush it again, and then call me in when the water is 1 mm below the rim. 

I thought about this while dribbling into my MegaMax as I cleaned up what had dribbled out of the toilet during the plunging. 

[FretaBWet]

Wow, it's hard to believe but we got 11 inches and we're way south of you. We don't have a snowblower but we do have tractors and the big one has a bucket right now so we shoveled the trucks out by hand and then I fired up the tractor. Our house sits 100 yards from the street so we're not shoveling that by hand.

Hugs,

Freta

[Little Sherri]

16 hours ago, FretaBWet said:

Wow, it's hard to believe but we got 11 inches and we're way south of you.

This has been an unusually snow-free winter so far. We may end up with 8+ inches on Friday, however. But I'm in the greater Toronto area, and we aren't known for our record-breaking snowfalls. We always get hammered a couple of times, and I'm at the North end of the region, so we generally get twice as much as the people down by the lake see. However, if you go an hour North of me, you're into what we refer to as the "snow belt", and from there, North, it's not uncommon to end up with at least a few feet of snow on the ground in shady, unplowed areas, by spring. Our cottage when I was a kid was 3 hours North of here, and our dog at the time, a German Shepherd, would jump off the deck, and sometimes disappear into the powder, with just his tail coming up out of the snow like a shark's fin on the surface of the ocean. 

Speaking of dogs, I was rudely awakened by mine this morning. He was, I think, trying to tell me it was time to change my diaper. I'd gone to a pub with some buddies and arrived back home at midnight, tired and ready for bed. I had put a fresh diaper on before I left - a Rearz Lil' Splash, having dispensed with the MegaMax I'd worn while clearing the driveway, which dated back to the night before. Arriving in my bedroom with my spouse already sleeping, I evaluated the heft of my plastic underpants, and laziness and thrift prevailed over proactiveness. I brushed my teeth and hit the sack. 

My wife got up first, and left the room. My dog took this as a cue to jump up onto her spot on the bed. He then rooted around under the covers... and jammed his nose right into my butt, repeatedly, sniffing around as though to say, "Hey, mate, might want to freshen your baby pants... I think I've found the root of the problem... definitely something going on right around here."

I got up, and sure enough, the diaper was pendulous, and there was a slight scent of stale pee under the covers, nothing malignant yet, but it was there. Which is fair - a Lil' Splash is a day-weight product, ideally suited to an 8 to 10-hour shift, and I'd been in it since maybe 6 PM, so about 14 hours at that point, although the overnight shift is usually low in output.  I'm going to bin it shortly for another middle-weight, as I think I'll be running errands later today. I don't want to be waddling around town in something enormous. 

Despite being at this for coming up on 5 years now, I still have "pinch myself and make sure I'm not dreaming" moments, and I felt that way this morning as I made coffee and tried to figure out when to change my diaper, and what product type to go with next. "Wow... I wear diapers now. I slept in a diaper last night. I'm standing in my kitchen in one. I'm going to spend the rest of the day in one. Cool."  What a strange world I've engineered, embracing what, for some, would be a nightmare. 

[ppdude]

The snow has finally hit northern Michigan too. Temperatures are dropping and snow is accumulating. After all, it is January. We're forecast a foot in the next few days. But, the forecasters are almost always wrong and try to instill panic. We ignore them. We deal with whatever we get including soggy diapers.

 

 

 

[vvp39]

We in western Washington are blessed with Cliff Mass, a University of Washington professor of meteorology, who runs a weather blog. His forecasts are accurate, and his blog is always interesting to read.
https://cliffmass.blogspot.com/
It takes really odd conditions to get snow here, making it difficult to forecast. That said, we may get some this weekend.

[WBxx]

From the same storm our rain gauge (Georgia) showed 3 plus inches in roughly 12 hours.  What would that be in snow, perhaps 30 inches!

[ppdude]

2 hours ago, WBxx said:

From the same storm our rain gauge (Georgia) showed 3 plus inches in roughly 12 hours.  What would that be in snow, perhaps 30 inches!

From weather sources and personal trials/tribulations, one inch of rain equates to 6" of snow. 3" of rain is roughly equivalent to 18" of snow. Happy trails to you!!!

 

 

[ppdude]

On 4/3/2019 at 12:38 PM, Little Sherri said:

 

 I should emphasize for the sake of honesty that I am "wearing" diapers, rather than living in diapers, at the moment, IE, I am being selective about use, no messes, and am allowing myself potty privileges if my diaper is past 50% and I'm not in a position to swap my diaper any time soon. One thing this experiment has done is emphasize for me how much I am enjoying this, how "right" I feel. I am also happy to report that I can quickly settle into normal social interactions and just be myself - one concern I had was that being diapered might cause me to be less myself, less confident, less forward, something detectable. I don't want to impose this strange fetish on other people, I simply want to be the same person I always have been, while wearing a diaper.

That's just smart. Adapt to the situation. That's how to operate. You're a good boy.

 

 

 

[Little Sherri]

40 minutes ago, ppdude said:

That's just smart. Adapt to the situation. That's how to operate. You're a good boy.

Wow, a blast from the past there! I should go back and read what I've written here sometime. It would take days, though. 

 

4 hours ago, WBxx said:

From the same storm our rain gauge (Georgia) showed 3 plus inches in roughly 12 hours.  What would that be in snow, perhaps 30 inches!

We report everything in metric up here (although everyone still talk in terms of inches, feet, and degrees F, so you could say that we're fluent in both.) Generally, we equate 1 mm of rain to about 1 cm of snow, so that's a 10:1 ratio, roughly. 

 

5 hours ago, ppdude said:

But, the forecasters are almost always wrong and try to instill panic. We ignore them.

Same here. They seem to feel that they get more eyes on their apps & TV channels, or more ears on their radio broadcasts, by predicting the apocalypse is neigh. The following has happened countless times, I'm sure, but I remember one instance of it vividly: we had three Fridays in a row a couple of years ago where they predicted the four horseman of the snow-pocalypse would ride, and for the first two, it mostly turned to rain. Then, on the third one, we actually got 30 CM of snowfall relatively quickly, in the afternoon (about a foot), and I remember the weather guy on a local news station saying "Why are there SO many people out on the roads? I guess they didn't heed the warnings...", and I felt like screaming into the radio "BECAUSE YOU GUYS OVERCALLED IT TWICE CONSECUTIVELY SO EVERYONE IGNORED YOU!!!" 

[oznl]

Some rather unusual “pee dreams” happened this week.  In a curious parallel to Little Sherri, I’ve had a few pee dreams lately.

The first occurred sometime after I’d woken at around 1am to find myself (annoyingly) dry.   For some reason, despite plenty of beers earlier that night, I didn’t feel any need to pee.  Still I managed to dribble a bit into my dry cloth pull up nappies before falling back asleep, probably still dripping.

Suddenly I was on an airliner.  It was a strange kind of flight, some kind of pseudo-military joyride.  It was one of those giant military freighter planes, the type that has a giant door for a bum that you can drive tanks out of.  This one also had comfortable seats and windows, just like an Airbus but you could get up, wander down to the back and look out that enormous rear cargo door to view the terrain below us rushing past at an alarming rate.  We’d just shot up to high altitude for a bit of in-flight refuelling from a tanker aircraft (as you do) and now we were heading back over the coastline at low altitude, presumably to stay out of enemy radar.

I returned to my seat to find myself sporting pale denim shorts covering not a nappy but instead, an indwelling urinary catheter.  A leg bag half-filled with dark pee was strapped to my left thigh poking out cheerfully under the legging of my shorts.

That’s different.

I could clearly feel minor, ineffectual bladder spasms which presumably accompanied pee that dripped and drizzled utterly beyond my control in the manner of the catheterised (I’ve had the experience once, in hospital, didn’t particularly enjoy it).  Rather disturbingly, I had a fairly distinct “wet pants” sensation accompanying these spasms.

Looking down again at my lap, I saw a dark glistening patch on the crotch of my short and realised instantly that some (or possibly ALL) of my pee was routing around my catheter and into my pants.

I couldn’t stop it.  I was catheterised.  I just watched in dismay as the wet patch grew slowly as the relentless drips and dribbles continued.  This went on for an indeterminate period of time.  Occasionally, I noticed a stronger bladder spasm but all of this was 100% irrelevant: as on the aircraft, I was merely a passenger along for the ride.

After I while, I decided to stand up and go for a walk.  It made a change from peeing on the airline seat.

My pale blue denim shorts did absolutely nothing to disguise what was happening.   It was patently obvious that I’d substantially wet myself, and was continuing to do so.

I crossed the aisle into the back yard that was beside it (this is a dream right?  It’s ok to have a house and back yard adjacent seat 47B on an aircraft).  For some reason I stood beneath a clothesline that was densely populated with suspiciously nappy-like garments.

Looking down, I felt warm wet shorts sticking to my crotch as I felt another dribble of pee run down somewhere across my pubic area beneath them.

At this point, a random passenger came across and threw the pee-soaked mat that had been beneath my feet at my aircraft seat across at me.  It landed with a soggy “thud” in front of me, disintegrating on landing.

Just as I picked it up off the lawn, I found myself explaining “I was just getting rid of this” to the bemused homeowner who appeared behind me to investigate with a catheterised guy in wet shorts was holding a dripping and disintegration pee-mat in his back yard opposite an airliner seat aisle.

It was landing time anyway.  By the time I got back near my seat, it was time to get off the plane.  I hadn’t even stowed my tray table.

Other passengers were shuffling forward past my soaked seat ahead of me.

“What happened there?” one asked.

“We all know how that got there but HE won’t own it…” replied another, glancing back at me.

I woke up.  I was wet but I was wet anyway when I went to bed so who knows.

Then I had another one last night.  This time, I was sitting in the driver seat of a car and I needed to pee.  At the same time, I realised that flood waters were rising around the car and soon the car cabin would have water in it.

Under normal circumstances, this would be an excellent point to panic.  This however was a dream so instead I thought to myself “Oh cool, I really need to pee and NOW I can just stay sitting here and do it in my pants because soon everything around me is going to be wet anyway!”  I guess the general unreality of missing the “soon you will be gasping and screaming before undergoing an unpleasant, but short death by drowning” was balanced by the sad fact that when sitting in a car facing such a fate, peeing in ones pants is probably par for the course.

Anyway.  I went ahead and wet my dream-pants just sitting there in the car because it didn’t matter and nobody would ever find out.  I immediately felt a remarkably realistic burst of creeping, heavy, humid heat at my crotch replete with the odd trickling sensation.

I suspect that sensation really WAS taking place inside my nappy at that point in time and I was just dreaming my way through it.  I can’t be certain because I was a bit wet when I fell asleep but I can’t be certain ANY night these days.  I just remembered that dream clearly the next morning.  As usual, I’d been wet to some extent all night so who knew what happened when?

The first dream was thematic and I suspect another example of mental self-flagellation whereby I punish myself for what is objectively, an at best highly unusual but more probably sharply socially disapproved lifestyle choice.  There may or may not have been co-incidental bedwetting.  Certainly in my dream there was little I could do to stop things.

The second I conclude to be an oneirological metaphor that one part of my brain used to explain to another why we weren’t going to bother removing any clothing, getting up or even waking up in order to have our 3am wee this morning.

[Little Sherri]

Wow, @oznl, those are two very interesting and weird dreams! They're both intriguing, but the catheterization one in particular has so many layers to it. I've never dreamt of catheters before, possibly because I've never experienced one. 

I know I had some other dreams this week, beyond the ones I detailed here, but I can't recall anything about them. My typical diaper changing schedule got moved around a bit for various reasons related to my activities, and, what I had at hand when I'd last changed myself, resulting in my putting on what was destined to be my overnight diaper at an earlier time. This, in turn, resulted in my going to bed in a half-wet diaper a few times, and that feedback does tend to precipitate more dreams on the topic of wetting or being wet. None of them made enough of an impression that I was able to note the plots, however - I just woke up with the "I've been pulled from a dream" sensation of an immersive experience having dissipated like a puff of smoke in front of a fan.