24/7 startups, and unexpected pitfalls?

[Slomo]

7 hours ago, CptKirk said:

EVERYONE who is ANYONE to me, in my life, HAS KNOWN as when you rack up 400+ days hospitalized in 3 years and IC comes to stay (I also needed a walker/wheelchair for much of the time) and NO ONE,and I do mean NO ONE treats me ANY differently than they did before! 

There is NO HIDING DIAPERS when constantly hospitalized, and hospital diapers are WORTHLESS, so naturally, I always had several bags of my own o a shelf next to the bd. 

I imagined this was a social death sentence! BY GOD! I was NEVER more mistaken!

Face it,. there is SO MUCH WORSE that can happen to ANY OF US at any minute...IC is NOTHING compared to some of the horror stories I have heard from people, or roommates!

DON'T HIDE! Live your life as best you can...I've even een asked out 4x in the past 12-14 months, IC meant nothing to any of them!

I BELIEVE "we" overthink this, and the only harm it does is to our own self esteem!

DRIVE ON!

Military teaches all of us "improvise/ADAPT/Overcome! I can't think of a better expression to those of us who are IC!!

CptKirk!

 

GOODNIGHT

Seconded. I was self-humiliated by my diapers and even afraid of being caught or exposed. And when it finally did happen, life kept going on as normal. 

I can also say there is soooo mich worse than not being able to spot peeing in a diaper. Like not being able to pee at all. That will literally kill you. And again, I should know because I did die from the complications of not being able to pee. Though I am better now.

[Little Sherri]

2 hours ago, Slomo said:

I can also say there is soooo mich worse than not being able to spot peeing in a diaper

Very true, and I am lucky. I've had a brush with my mortality, and it has given me a perspective on life's rough patches that has helped me, I believe. 

10 hours ago, oznl said:

The “as you know” prelude (assuming a verbatim quote) did suggest to me that this ship had already sailed though which of course leads to the thought bubble of who ELSE may have enjoyed similar briefings.

Interesting thought. I had assumed that the ship sailed when she'd walked up behind me on my driveway when I was squatting over my ride-on lawnmower, and I had a fairly good strip of diaper showing out back, it being 100 feet up my driveway. However, there is a difference between noting an anomaly, and confirming a patter of behaviour. I don't know how that bridge got crossed, I just know that her and my wife have been thick as thieves this summer.

9 hours ago, CptKirk said:

Military teaches all of us "improvise/ADAPT/Overcome! I can't think of a better expression to those of us who are IC!!

Well said, sir - I have found that so far, the few people who "know", don't seem to care, although a lifetime of habitually being terrified of the prospect of exposure is a hard one to casually put aside. But you're right - this is my reality, I need to "drive on!" 

 

[CptKirk]

11 hours ago, le Hollandais said:

Reading this thread has me thinking that with age comes a certain expectation of the possibility that one might need diapers. No apologies nor explanations are needed.

I was 34 when my issues began, and holy shit was I IMMENSE! Wish I still looked like I did then, but that ship sailed, then sunk!

[CuriousForPadding]

On 8/23/2026 at 9:44 PM, Little Sherri said:

"Soooo...," my beloved began, "as you know, Hubby wears diapers."

As much as this might have been utterly mortifying, I really admire your courage in opening up about your unconventional fashion choices this way (and with the several friends who you’ve mentioned know). While it’s not anything any of us choose to flaunt, particularly, being able to be honest when the issue arises is a genuinely admirable thing!

Beyond my wife and one very close friend, no one else knows about my own fashion choices, and my paranoia levels, while not quite at the “Senator McCarthy and the Commies” level it used to be, remains pretty high. A part of me thinks it would be nice to let my hair down a bit (or, perhaps, let my shirttails up, a it were), but security remains high for now.

[superabsorbantpolymer]

On 8/23/2026 at 7:44 PM, Little Sherri said:

It's been an interesting day. You might say that I swam a little further into the deep end of this pool I'm in, although as far as I know, it's not related to anyone noticing that I went to the lunch - which turned into an afternoon - in a cloth diaper and plastic pants. One person did notice, however that person was my wife. Her comment did raise questions, though. 

But first, a side comment, that I found somewhat funny: one of my wife's relatives commented that we don't have any babies anymore - all of the kids in the family are in middle school or beyond, and many of them can vote. To which my daughter said, "Are there any babies we aren't thinking of...?", while looking at me. I couldn't tell if she was just asking if anyone in the family had a baby that we were failing to recall, or if she was taking a veiled swipe at my wardrobe preferences. I mentioned a couple of babies on the other side of the family, but she said they don't count in this family. 

The lunch went almost to dinner, and I had to consciously throttle back on fluid intake, because while I know that cloth diapers generally hold a lot, I don't have my commercial license flying them, so I'm not quite as confident as I would have been if I'd been in any of the disposables I know well. Eventually, we left, got in the car and drove home, and I was trying, on the drive to detect something, anything, in terms of scents coming from my now reasonably damp, controlled atmosphere toweling, and I could not. However, therein lies the danger of nose blindness. I'm going to type the rest of this out fairly quickly, as it just happened, and I want to get it down while my recall is decent. 

We got home, and I immediately went and changed into a pair of chemical-stained gym shorts that are a snug fit, particularly over a cloth diaper and plastic pant ensemble. The purpose of this was to go fish leaves out of the pool - we had a hell of a thunder storm last night, and the trees had been pelted with hail, causing them to start shedding some of their greenery. It felt like fall out there, except the leaves in the pool were green. 

I was working around the pool for about 45 minutes, and then I headed into the house, going to the kitchen to find out if some mac and cheese my daughter had proposed as a light snack after a heavy lunch, had been prepared. I ran straight into my wife, and Victoria, who were also headed to the kitchen, from the direction of her office. As is usual with Victoria, she had manifested like an apparition, and I didn't know she was in my house until I encountered her. 

I stood back, to let them through, and then I debated my moves - I had obviously been about to enter the kitchen, but I felt even more self-conscious in my cloth diaper getup than I had in similar shorts over a disposable. I paused like I was thinking about something very important that I suddenly needed to do, but then my wife said, "Come, chat..." 

So I walked over, feeling like there was a flashing arrow pointing to my midsection. Nobody else was in the kitchen - I think if my daughter had been there, tending to the stove, I might have gotten a reprieve. 

My wife opened with, "So, you did go as you were, didn't you? I suspected you had, but I didn't know."

I wanted to ask her if she were hinting at having noticed some visual evidence that I was in the cloth diaper I'd worn down to breakfast, but I couldn't ask that in front of Victoria, of course. Which she knew, of course.

I nodded, and lifted my eyebrows. "It made sense just to proceed..."

"How did it feel?"

Now, I furrowed my eyebrows, because I couldn't answer that question in any intelligible way, with a non-insider also looking expectantly at me. 

"Fine, I guess...", I said noncommittally.

"I have a question for you," she said in a conspiratorial tone. "Can I maybe just tell Victoria a bit about what we're talking about?" 

My heart skipped a beat, and my stomach filled with butterflies. I realized in that moment that I had already been flirting very heavily with just talking openly about what I perceived to be the elephant in the room, with this neighbour, since she knew without a shadow of a doubt that my underpants came in boxes of 36. But this was the moment, wasn't it? There was no plausible deniability, after this. 

I could feel my diaphragm tremble a bit as I croaked, "Sure..." I wasn't certain what I had unleashed, but, I'd unleashed it. 

"Soooo...," my beloved began, "as you know, Hubby wears diapers."

Those words echoed in my brain, and I felt my cheeks reddening, but there was not way to stifle an involuntary reaction. As you know?  Well, I guess she did know, but still. Wears diapers?  Undeniably accurate, but hearing it said out loud was a paradigm shift. 

"And, he mostly prefers disposables, but we have had some discussions about if cloth diapers would make sense from time to time, to help with the cost, and and to reduce the waste, but it's not me that wears them, so it's ultimately his decision, of course. 

"Well, that makes good sense," Victoria said with a smile and a nod. Which part made good sense, I wasn't sure of. 

"He's only ever worn his cloth diapers around the house, but today, he wore them to a family lunch, I think for the first time, is that right?"

I have actually worn cloth diapers out and about on a few occasions, but I didn't have the will to start parsing out the exceptions to what my wife was saying, so I just nodded. 

"So, what did you think? Could you wear them more often?"

I swallowed, and cleared my throat. "Uh, hi Victoria - sorry to, uh, drag you into this family conversation... but, uh, yes, I could probably wear them out on occasion. It really depends on where, and what I'm going to be wearing... I don't mind cloth diapers, per se, I just feel like maybe they can be a bit less discrete than a disposable..." 

I took a deep breath, and did what came naturally, in the moment, which was to snap the waistband of my shorts lightly, while saying, "They don't work so well under this outfit, do they?", and then I laughed. I was very careful to tug upward as I did that, so as not to show my printed plastic pants.

Victoria chuckled, and then said "I've thought before about getting those for Wayne, but it would just be too much work."

"I do find them to be a bit of work, and with all the travel I've been doing lately, there really isn't any practical way to manage that. So I mostly wear, us, disposables, unless I'm around the house long enough to make it worthwhile." 

"And they have a wetproof cover built into the nappy?", she asked. I couldn't believe I was now in an open conversation about this. 

"I wear...", I took a breath, as though I were about to make some great confession. "Well, just your plain old square cloth diapers, and then plastic pants... you're probably too young to remember those, but maybe you've seen them in catalogs..." 

She laughed. "Are they quite comfortable?"

"They're not bad. A bit bulky, obviously, and there's a bit more skill in pinning a nappy on, then there is in using tapes, but honestly, once I'm in it, I more or less forget about it." 

"Well, that's all you can ask for, isn't it?" Victoria said, with a smile, and then looked at my wife. 

My wife then segued into a conversation about the incoming waste pickup changes, and I got the impression that the impetus for the conversation had probably come from her asking Victoria if she were going to be using the "diaper" bag tags that she was planning to foist onto me. Or maybe Victoria suggested them to her. Who knows. But I had a thought, one that caused me to interrupt their conversation. 

"Victoria, sorry to interrupt, but I did want to mention that really, nobody in my extended family knows anything about what we're talking about. My sister does not, as far as I know, have any idea, so if you do happen to be chatting with her, I'd appreciate it if this could stay between us..."

"Oh, of course, mum's the word." 

With that, I turned and exited the kitchen, heading up to my office, to process the evening's events. This being how I process...

That's so awesome. Your wife has completely internalized that you wear diapers, it's a fact of life. There's something beautiful about how casual she is with the information. I'm not married but I imagine ones spouse is the only one who really matters when it comes to accepting diapers. If she's fine with the neighbors knowing you need diapers then who cares. I wonder who broached the topic first, her or Victoria. And for how long they've discussed their husbands diapers over coffee 😂 

I do often wonder how aware other people in my life are. Recently I hosted some old friends at my place for a few days and did a road trip for a week. I wore my diapers the whole time, as I have around them on many occasions before, but we were all living in close quarters so I figured they'd probably notice but this is my life. I wear diapers.

I wore a goodnite during one hike, but otherwise wore diapers. My friend's girlfriend saw my used goodnite I left in my ensuite toilet trash when she went to use my rooms shower. I remembered it was there and went to get it but she was already in the toilet (without closing the door so I actually walked in on her).

She covered the goodnite in a layer of toilet paper so the next to use the shower wouldn't see it, and we never mentioned it. Another occasion I think a different friend saw my diaper I had laid out on the bed when I went into the shower and he went into my room to get keys.

When they were at my house, my room/bedding definitely have that sweet stale pee smell that betrays all bedwetters. On several occasions I continued to hang out in the evening with a bulky wet diaper rather than change prematurely. I def had a smell of pee at points through the trip.

They never once mentioned anything. After they left I was feeling somewhat paranoid and vulnerable so I messaged the girlfriend with a very vague and verbose apology/thank you for not blowing my cover about my embarrassing medical issue I've been dealing with for years but try to keep discreet. She didn't really cop to what I was hinting at and thought I was apologizing for something else at first. Idk if she was saving face or what.

I've worn diapers and shared a room with the friend who's girlfriend saw my pull up many times so I don't think it's anything new to him, but idk how observant he is. I know his girlfriend has some incontinence issues, she messed herself and wet herself on a few occasions when we've been together in the past. My friend made minor jokes but I tried to downplay it and say how these things happen no big deal. I don't think she wears diapers, probably lady liners or similar, but I kind of knew she's be sympathetic regardless so I felt safe opening up somewhat to her about this.

I figured everyone knew and maybe was talking about it behind my back. She said that nobody has mentioned it but if they did realize she didn't see it being a big deal.

So I kind of came out as incontinent to one of my best friends girlfriends. All in all it further affirmed my feelings that it literally doesn't matter if I'm incontinent. Nobody cares. If she did mention it to my friend (her bf), it hasn't changed anything. We've been continuing to talk daily like we always do. They love me for me, and if I wear diapers that's just part of the package. 

[Primcess Mauve]

I’ve now gone over a week in diapers. I do feel like getting past that first week was the biggest hurdle. Now that I’m past that I’ve given myself permission to go back to underwear but still find myself choosing a diaper every time. I kind of feel like I’m getting used to diapers to where I’ve kind of just accepted that I wear them now and am okay with it.

[Little Sherri]

Being a little more "out" about being in diapers, specifically with my neighbour, did lend me an opportunity to enjoy some outside time last night. Her house is the one with the most unobstructed sightlines to my pool deck, and in theory, if she saw me out there in a diaper, she'd shrug, presumably. Although I haven't crashed through the ABDL barrier with anyone, just the "in nappies" barrier. A couple of people have seen some coloured waistbands, over the years, but no cartoon characters or baby blocks, as far as I know. Other than one early incident in a Home Depot, but that was a stranger. 

I was in a Crinklz, but I might as well have been in lederhosen, because while the moon was out, it was low on the horizon, and obstructed by clouds and trees, so with the lights off, it was a black hole out there - I've tested this many times. Still, once my eyes adjusted, I was able to sweep, and rearrange some furniture, in just my diaper, and a long t-shirt that probably would have left me some grace, had anyone other than Victoria, come up to their property lines, and squinted, and had my very white legs reflected enough lumens to tickle their rods. 

My other neighbours have to see past a lot more vegetation, and for much further distances, in order to get an eyeful of a middle-aged man dressed like a toddler below the waist. 

I can't really fathom why I like doing that so much; it's not like it's the thrill of maybe being caught. The person who would most likely catch me, would be my wife, and there is little thrill in that prospect. My best theory is that it's another of the things I was afraid to do, as a kid, so, as an adult, I am reveling in my agency, and boldly doing the things that terrified me. Such as public speaking - I do that all the time, now, but as a kid, I would completely choke up. Or telling arseholes to kindly bugger off, which I do unflinchingly, these days. I was a fairly meek kid in that respect, although then, as now, I had a high-limit switch, and I saw occasional what the hell? looks in bullies' eyes, when I went from being the quiet bookish kid, to willing to throw hands. What changed? I'd had enough. 

I've often thought about, and I will try to engineer, my next property being one with a completely private backyard, where I can tinker with the pool or the garden or whatever, in just a diaper, under the sun. I can't tell my wife that's my plan, however. But she does like the idea of being a bit further down one of the backroads out here, so I could see her going along with me. To my earlier point, though, nothing, other than satellites and drones, would presumably be able to see what I was up to, in this fictional garden, so the joy in this is not derived from the idea of possibly being caught. I think it's more related to diapers just being "normal" in my world, whatever that means. Maybe it stems from wishing I could feel normal, as a kid. 

Although I've done a fairly decent job of normalizing this, within limited circles. I am fortunate to be surrounded by decent people, so the ones that have, by hook or by crook, been somewhat enlightened, have been very gracious about their positions of trust. This thought came to mind when I ran into Victoria, sort of, over the fence this morning, while emptying leaves from my skimmer (thanks, hail). I was knocking the basket against my fence, when she knocked two garden tools together in response, from the other side of the shrubbery that separates our lots. I walked along to a break in the foliage, stuck my head over, and said hello. I was still in the Crinklz I'd been out in the night before, now under shorts, but I didn't really give that much thought, because my lower half was obscured by the lower greenery along the fence. But I did have the brief (pun there) thought that she might say something, similar to what I experienced when my friend asked me if I was wearing my Huggies, the next time I went over to his place, after telling him about my unconventional underpants requirements. 

Was this going to be a topic of conversation? Because I can hold up my end of almost any line of discourse, but I really didn't want to be fielding questions from the neighbour on if I'd gone cloth, or disposable, today. But, she just asked how the pool was doing, post-storm, and she old me which of her plants had been damaged, and then we said good morning to each other, and went back to our business. Which was exactly how I wanted it to be - I want to have tea with her in my kitchen, or go over to her place, and not think about my diaper while I'm there. 

My Huggies friend, he of the bed-pocalypse, meanwhile, has reached out and asked when we're getting together again, reinforcing that he and his wife must definitely be cool with what happened, because surely, if they wanted me to fade to black, they wouldn't keep asking to get together. And Dave & Anne are having my wife & I over, tomorrow, and the women will retire early, and I'll end up sleeping in their guest bedroom, in my Kevlar plastic pants, and they seem cool with that, too. I'm very lucky. 

My wife also just announced that she's taking my younger daughter to one of her friends' cottages, and they're staying for two or three days, the week before school starts. These people keep an impeccable household, and our dog is not compatible with that, given that he violates a law of thermodynamics with the amount of hair he sheds, which surely qualifies for the word "perpetual". In the old days, I'd have wanted to pin her down on exactly when they were going to be back, so that I could plan out how much diaper time I could reasonably indulge in, without the prosect of being interrupted by an unexpected homecoming, with my Bambino Classico still having some capacity left in it, as I tear it off and stuff it deep into a garbage bag. Now, I'm just going to kind of miss them. But I will probably go sit out by the pool a a bit more, in my diaper.  

[Little Sherri]

I'm on day 2 of having the house to myself, except for the dog. Rain has curtailed any evening outdoor excursions into the backyard, sans trousers, so far, although I was out there last night, sweeping more leaves away from their natural destination, being the pool. But I had shorts on because I was operating with the lights illuminated, as I also had to test the water, empty the skimmer and generally do stuff that would result in an elevated risk of dropping my phone into the pool, were I using it as a flashlight, instead. 

I have been operating in the house almost entirely in just a diaper and a shirt, but there is way less novelty to that than there used to be, a decade ago, because I can also do that more or less anytime I want to, as long as my kids aren't home, which they increasingly are not. I had a conversation with Victoria in the area where our yards meet that is not defined by a fence, in an Inspire+ and a pair of gym shorts, but compared with the cloth diaper getup from a week ago, that then-new mega-disposable was relatively svelte, so I did not feel unduly self-conscious. She's seen worse. It was nice, I guess, not to really give it much thought. 

I was in a similar position, in a BeDry Night under shorts and a t-shirt, over at Dave & Anne's place on Sunday. I'd woken up early in the morning, and wanted a glass of water; I was in my lined plastic pants, which gives me an absurd silhouette, however it was 6 AM... I could probably wander to the kitchen without running into anyone... But then I remembered that Anne has cat-like stealth capabilities, and is prone to taking advantage of the early-morning quiet, to drink tea, and read in their living room. So I took off the Kevlar underpants, and pulled on my backup shorts, headed out, and got a quiet "Good morning" from Anne, from her vantage point in the corner of their couch. As with Victoria, I felt entirely unselfconscious; Anne has seen me in the same position, in the plastic pants (under shorts), and didn't blink, so the BeDry was positively vanishing by comparison. 

I ended up helping Dave check the wiring on a chandelier that was prone to flickering; he stood on a stool and supported it, while I was up a ladder, attempting to peek into the junction box, in search of a loose wire nut, trying to find it with my eyes, rather than via being zapped by it. There was one in there with an incoming neutral that was cut very short, so I borrowed a stripper from Dave, lengthened the exposed copper, and did a nice pigtail splice before applying the marette (a word which spellcheck will not ignore...). 

I had given my shirt a good tuck in prior to ascending, but with the overhead exertions, I became aware that I was standing in the middle of their dining room, likely with a swath of white plastic occasionally seeing daylight, as I reached overhead, but, again, there was no knew information being gleaned by anyone. 

What else did I want to talk about.... oh, yes: my wife texted from a Target in the US; they'd decided to cross the border to have large servings of mediocre Italian food. She was asking if I needed diaper cream. I guess she thought the price was good, although in my experience lately, prices in US retail outlets are largely about the same as they are in Canada, but priced in US dollars. This is a shift - a decade ago, almost everything in US supermarkets seemed like a good deal, even with the exchange, whereas now, a bag of chips that would be $3.99 in Canada, is $3.99 in the US, or about $5.60 CAD, which would be more in line with gas station pricing, than what you'd see in a supermarket. 

I said, "Sure", however - I'm curious as to what she'll bring back. I pretty much universally use a Parents Choice zinc oxide diaper cream that they sell at Walmart up here; it's relatively inexpensive, it works, and it's readily available. I still have a couple of tubs of it in stock from the last time she asked me, but novelty is attractive...

[Little Sherri]

I managed to hang out a bunch inside my house in just a diaper, while my family was away, and I did a couple of short forays out into the yard after dark, but the wind and hail we've had has damaged some vegetation, and a section of privacy screening that my neighhour has on their deck, all of which have made being in the yard sans trousers or shorts, if not exactly "risky", then, less obviously "safe". 

My wife returned with a tub of "Triple Paste" diaper cream, that I will test drive at some point. My current regimen does a pretty good job of keeping me rash free, so my approach to this will be somewhat along the lines of the recommended approach to changing a dog's food - you mix it with their current diet, first, and then you taper them off the old food and increase the ration of the new, and if the new food causes an upset in the consistency of their leavings, then you can reverse course. If the Triple Paste works, then once I run out of my current tub of cream, I will use that up next. 

My Kevlar-lined plastic pants prevented me from having to have a hard conversation with Dave, and/or Anne - I stayed in their guest room on Friday night after a night out at a local watering hole. When I woke up the next morning, I knew I was a bit wet, but I thought that my plastic pants would be unscathed, as they usually are - the threat of their capabilities seems to be all it takes to keep leaks at bay. Well, usually. Not this time. When I went to take them off, so as to avoid having a tush of planetary proportions, when I walk out to their kitchen, I got a whiff of "unfresh diaper", that normally would not emanate from the top-tier Rearz disposable I had on (the lamented, discontinued Mermaid's Tale). Closer examination revealed that I had wee-ed over the front of my disposable, and soaked not just the front of the terry liner, but also the side, suggesting that at least some of the activity occurred on my side, or that I perhaps repositioned during the "incident". 

A careful inspection of the sheets showed zero damage taken, so, the plastic pants did their job. This was the first weekend, I think, where I had to use both sets of plastic pants - usually, I take one with me, and if I end up staying over somewhere, I wear them, but kind of like the way you'd wear a seatbelt - not intending to use them, per se, but just because it's the prudent thing to do. 

The second set was employed last night, when I stayed over at my buddy's place, he of the bed-pocalypse that resulted in my ordering the lined plastic pants in the first place. I have to give this guy a name for you, so I don't have to keep saying "the guy whose guest bed I wet". I shall call him Craig. I think he'd laugh at that. Anyway, my wife and I went over to their place, my wife just to say hi, and drop me off, while Craig and I intended to make a night of it, with some homemade beer and likely a foray into the darker spirits, later in the evening. Ergo, I was staying over. I'll cut to the chase on this line of conversation, before backtracking temporally - I wore the plastic pants to bed over an Inspire+, and as a result, I wet the diaper, but not the plastic pants. The way it should have worked, at Dave & Anne's. 

My buddy did not ask me if I was wearing my "Huggies" this time, but I basically said as much, out loud, in any case; there had been rain earlier, and we were sitting on his outdoor furniture, and as we positioned ourselves, he said, "I apologize if you end up with a wet ass - I flipped he cushions over, and they've been in the sun for a bit, but there might still be water in some of them..."

He caught my eye, as he said it, and them smiled, in what looked like a belated recognition that he'd opened a potential one-liner opportunity, so I beat him to the punch, and said, "I won't notice... one of the few upsides to wearing diapers, is zero fear of sitting on something wet." 

Craig's wife, whom I shall call Charlene, laughed at that, and then my wife, never one to not walk through an open door, said, "And nobody can blame you for it...", which caused Craig to laugh out loud. I chuckled as well. 

As much as the moment passed quickly, and my underpants never came up again, it was a bit of a watershed moment for me, because while I had confessed to Craig that I wear diapers, after the incident, and he had cracked a couple of jokes in front of Charlene, I'd never actually said, "I wear diapers" to Charlene. So there it was; I'd cracked a joke about it in front of three people, got a couple of chuckles, and then we moved on to more interesting things than my nappy. 

This morning, I got home courtesy of Craig, who needed to borrow a tool from me. I was still in my Inspire+ that I'd worn overnight, and I am still in it now - I'm writing this by way of avoiding doing some outdoor chores that need done, after which I will shower, so I'm hoping to just wear this diaper until I'm done - it seems like it still has elbow room in it. Victoria, who is out in her yard, might be close, and/or observant enough, to accurately guess the source of the bulkiness under my shorts, but everyone else will be far enough away, if they are out, that I doubt they'd give me a second glance. 

But as I was getting changed into work-worthy clothes, from social clothes, my wife happened to notice the plastic pants from the previous night, on top of my laundry basket. 

"Oh, did you actually wear a cloth diaper out last night?", she asked. 

"No, those are my bedtime plastic pants. They actually saw a bit of action at Dave & Anne's yesterday."

"Well, good that you were wearing them, then - that could have been awkward. You might have your overnight privileges revoked by Anne," she said wryly. 

"Well, Charlene seems to have forgiven me, but I never want to go back there again. If I'm sleeping on a bed that I don't own, I'm probably going to be in those plastic pants."

"Or you could just wear cloth diapers and plastic pants, that would be about the same, wouldn't it?"

"More or less, sure, but I don't want to be wrestling with pinning myself into a diaper, at 2 AM, when I'm three sheets to the wind. And I wouldn't want to just go over in a reusable diaper, from the get go, because they're pretty bulky," I answered. 

"At Dave & Anne's, or Craig and Charlene's, maybe that wouldn't matter? Just suggesting. You do what you want."

This was an interesting conversational gambit, and not one that I was expecting from my beloved. Go ahead and wear your biggest diapers, if the people we are visiting already know about them. 

"Yeah, I suppose it wouldn't matter much if I was wearing something a bit bigger, at either of their places, but you never know who's going to stop by, or if, for example, we decide to move the operation to a pub, I'd rather not have to conduct an emergency diaper swap..."

She shrugged, and then we were talking about something else. 

[jeremy12312]

Triple Paste is good stuff. It’s the cream you go to when your normal routine doesn’t work and you need to call in the backup. 

[Elegy53]

Interesting to hear about the various creams available at your side of the water, we get to that side of the pond from time to time and it's handy to know.

Over in the UK I get Zinc and Castor oil baby cream which sounds similar and costs £2 in our local supermarket. It does have pictures of babies on it but works well on my ancient frame. It can also be bought in 'plain packaging' generic tubs if it matters to anyone. 

[Little Sherri]

11 hours ago, Elegy53 said:

It can also be bought in 'plain packaging' generic tubs if it matters to anyone. 

I haven't seen diaper cream over here that doesn't smell like baby powder, or otherwise reference babies on the packaging, and it is usually co-located with the Pampers and Huggies and wipes etc. Purveyors of incontinence supplies do sell "barrier creams" that reference neither the "D" word, nor babies, but they aren't easy to find in stores, and they tend to command higher prices. They seem to be a bit more technical, offered by companies like 3M, rather than Parent's Choice. 

I don't care what my white butt paste calls itself, and I don't mind the smell of baby powder, so I'd rather save my money, until I have to call in the big guns, when a rash gets away from me, but thankfully, that rarely happens these days. 

My wife sent me a picture today, apropos of nothing, of a onesie she saw on a baby, in a social media post; it said "Pack My Diapers, I'm Going Camping!" I don't think we have any plans to go camping anytime soon, but I guess she thought I'd find it funny, and I do. I'm trying to recollect if I every actually have been camping, since I've been in diapers fulltime. We used to go with friends of ours, but then they bought a cottage, so now we go there, and that was a while ago. I can definitely see the advantages of not having to leave the tend in the middle of the night to either wee in the woods, or, to make one's way over to the rank-smelling public washrooms that are on offer, within a short walk from most of the campsites. I did wear diapers while camping as a kid, at least at night, and I did not enjoy that, particularly - I was in a constant heightened state of anxiety, because let's face it, I was 8, and still had Pampers in my duffle bag, and other people's kids were in and out of our tents (as we were in and out of theirs), playing cards and LEGO and such; security protocols that existed at home, like locked doors and lockable bathrooms, and a distinct separation between where we entertain, and where we sleep, did not exist at the campsites we visited. I used to bury them deep in the public garbage cans, early in the morning, so that they could not be traced back to our camp. 

As an adult, I feel like I'd want to be with people who are not completely ignorant to the superabsorbent realities of my underpants, in order to be comfortable camping with people - I'm picturing tents with no sound insulation, and no bathrooms close by, and very casual clothing. It would be more relaxing if I didn't have to engage in James Bond-level subterfuge. 

Going on an ABDL campout is something I have on my list of things to think about trying; I'd have to trust the security situation, and the people, and they'd presumably have to trust me, but I have heard that this is a thing, and can be fun. If anyone hears of one happening in Ontario, let me know. But I make no promises. 

A good friend here has invited me to her place, or to "diaper-positive" campouts that she and her partner attend, on a few occasions, but they live about an 18 hour drive from me, so I have not yet had a chance to take them up on that. But it is on my bucket list. Someday. 

[Slomo]

I used to get a prescription for "Triple diaper cream" (not to be confused with triple paste). It had to be made in a mixing pharmacy and contained zinc, nystatin cream, and 5% hydrocortisone cream. And that stuff could clear up the worst of rashes within a single day. Sadly, I haven't been able to find a urologist or obgyn that still knows the exact formula. So I haven't been able to get it filled in over a decade.

[Little Sherri]

I've been fortunate enough, @Slomo, to not have had a conversation with my doctor, as of yet, regarding diaper rash specifically. I'm sure it will happen someday, but so far, the over-the-counter strength antifungals that we can buy in Canada have been up to the task. I'll mix Canesten (or choose your brand) with 2% hydrocortisone cream, and then compound that with whatever zinc oxide diaper cream I have open, and that "triple paste" recipe seems to do it. 

[CptKirk]

14 hours ago, Slomo said:

I used to get a prescription for "Triple diaper cream" (not to be confused with triple paste). It had to be made in a mixing pharmacy and contained zinc, nystatin cream, and 5% hydrocortisone cream. And that stuff could clear up the worst of rashes within a single day. Sadly, I haven't been able to find a urologist or obgyn that still knows the exact formula. So I haven't been able to get it filled in over a decade.

Have you considered speaking to a pharmacist? If ANYONE would know what goes in it, they'd be the people, i'd think.

[DiaperboyEddie12]

On 9/7/2026 at 9:18 PM, Little Sherri said:

I haven't seen diaper cream over here that doesn't smell like baby powder, or otherwise reference babies on the packaging, and it is usually co-located with the Pampers and Huggies and wipes etc. Purveyors of incontinence supplies do sell "barrier creams" that reference neither the "D" word, nor babies, but they aren't easy to find in stores, and they tend to command higher prices. They seem to be a bit more technical, offered by companies like 3M, rather than Parent's Choice. 

I don't care what my white butt paste calls itself, and I don't mind the smell of baby powder, so I'd rather save my money, until I have to call in the big guns, when a rash gets away from me, but thankfully, that rarely happens these days. 

My wife sent me a picture today, apropos of nothing, of a onesie she saw on a baby, in a social media post; it said "Pack My Diapers, I'm Going Camping!" I don't think we have any plans to go camping anytime soon, but I guess she thought I'd find it funny, and I do. I'm trying to recollect if I every actually have been camping, since I've been in diapers fulltime. We used to go with friends of ours, but then they bought a cottage, so now we go there, and that was a while ago. I can definitely see the advantages of not having to leave the tend in the middle of the night to either wee in the woods, or, to make one's way over to the rank-smelling public washrooms that are on offer, within a short walk from most of the campsites. I did wear diapers while camping as a kid, at least at night, and I did not enjoy that, particularly - I was in a constant heightened state of anxiety, because let's face it, I was 8, and still had Pampers in my duffle bag, and other people's kids were in and out of our tents (as we were in and out of theirs), playing cards and LEGO and such; security protocols that existed at home, like locked doors and lockable bathrooms, and a distinct separation between where we entertain, and where we sleep, did not exist at the campsites we visited. I used to bury them deep in the public garbage cans, early in the morning, so that they could not be traced back to our camp. 

As an adult, I feel like I'd want to be with people who are not completely ignorant to the superabsorbent realities of my underpants, in order to be comfortable camping with people - I'm picturing tents with no sound insulation, and no bathrooms close by, and very casual clothing. It would be more relaxing if I didn't have to engage in James Bond-level subterfuge. 

Going on an ABDL campout is something I have on my list of things to think about trying; I'd have to trust the security situation, and the people, and they'd presumably have to trust me, but I have heard that this is a thing, and can be fun. If anyone hears of one happening in Ontario, let me know. But I make no promises. 

A good friend here has invited me to her place, or to "diaper-positive" campouts that she and her partner attend, on a few occasions, but they live about an 18 hour drive from me, so I have not yet had a chance to take them up on that. But it is on my bucket list. Someday. 

@Little Sherri there is a member here named @froggy he has been to many camping trips.  He would be able to tell you about the security of these places.  And how it all works.

[Little Sherri]

Have you ever been all dressed up, with nowhere to go? I'm kind of in that position. I put on a BeDry (the standard version) last night at bedtime, thinking that I would want to change at some point today, before going out, because I thought that I was going to be helping a buddy trim some trees. This buddy falls into the "uninitiated" category, so I didn't want to show up at his place in an Inspire+ I'd already been in for 16 hours, preferring to go with something that has an 8-12 hour range, and then I would probably have put on an Active Air or something like that, for the outdoor work and the subsequent beers. However, it is raining today, so my friend has put a pin in the idea. 

That leaves me here in this BeDry that has not yet leaked, but that my instincts tell me won't be up for a lot more activity, unless I start getting creative about the positions I'm in, to try to engage the outlying SAP reserves. I feel like I'm too old for that, and anyway, I'd get quizzical looks from my wife, if I where to invert myself on the couch every half hour or so, for a couple of minutes at a time. 

"What in God's name are you doing?"

"Trying to distribute wee in my diaper, of course. What else would I be doing?"

I suppose I could upend my usual evening routine of showering and getting into a new nappy right before bed, and instead put on a BeDry Night or Critter Caboose or whatever, around dinner. I'd be going to bed a bit wet, but I've done that plenty of times before. It tends to "seed the clouds" a bit, as far as overnight wetting goes; last night was a case in point - I put on that dry BeDry, and I woke up with it still BeingDry. It was a weeknight, absent beer, so it could have gone either way. 

I did want to mention an attempted insurrection on the previous night, in the #2 department; I was sleeping peacefully, in a Crinklz. I'd eaten some leftover takeout pasta that might have been past its prime; I'd need to send samples into the CDC to know for sure, and they've all been consumed, or disposed of, at this juncture. It smelled fine, and the texture was mediocre, but the chain it was bought from is a shining example of gustatory mediocrity, so I'd probably have been primed to take more note of it having some textural character, than it not having any, as was the case. I'd worked late and was scavenging, basically, and I came across the refrigerator equivalent of roadside carrion. It had been killed for me, and then tenderized by the passage of time. What else was I to have done?

My large intestine disagreed with my choices, evidently. So, I woke up, sleepily realizing that I was emitting bovine sounds from down below, and had the brief, logical, but ill-advised epiphany that I was in already dressed for the weather, so to speak, so why didn't I just dispense with the preamble, complete the task at hand, and go back to sleep, like I did on so many other evenings? Oh, wait. I don't poop myself with abandon, at the drop of a nightcap. That latitude is reserved strictly for weeing. However, in the meantime, I had actually, briefly, given less thought to containment, than was warranted, so I then found myself clenching, waking up completely, and making a beeline for our bathroom. 

The Crinklz' was not cut down in its prime; I made it to the potty, pulled off the left side tabs, and let the fettuccini have its way with me. Had I thrown caution to the wind, I'm fairly certain I would have been apologizing to my wife, at some point early in the morning, when she shook me awake, to go investigate where the dog had presumably crapped his guts out, somewhere in the room. "It wasn't, er, the dog, exactly..."  

Nice try, Universe. Nice try. It has been a while since you tried to pull that one on me. 

[Little Sherri]

Well, I've managed to back myself into a slightly tight corner here. I find the way it played out, to be particularly hilarious; I was over at Dave & Anne's yesterday, and we went out to the local pub, and we even met up with my older daughter, who can now frequent pubs, although she doesn't have much use for beer. Yet. 

Anne & my daughter left early, Dave & I stayed on, and a cast of characters rotated through, before we took a rideshare back to their house, had one beer in the kitchen, and then went off to bed. I had been wearing a BeDry since maybe an hour before I left the house. At bedtime, at 2 AM, it was feeling pretty heavy, and would soon be in "leaks not impossible" territory, but the timing was good, as it was time for bed. I put on a BeDry Night, and my lined plastic pants, and fell into the arms of an ethanol-assisted sleep. 

I woke up quite late by my standards, 10 AM, which was lovely. I did a quick check of the lining of my plastic pants, and they were dry, so the BeDry Night had done its job, having sequestered a fair bit of wee, so that it could not interfere with their sheets. I decided to take the plastic pants off before heading out to their kitchen, to lighten up the silhouette a bit, and then I headed into the kitchen for some coffee.

A couple of topics came up in rapid succession, into which any of us could have injected a comment about the convenience of wearing diapers; first, Anne was talking about going trick-or-treating with the kids when they were younger, and how she recalled having to pee really badly, and trying to think of which house would be the best, and/or least threatening, at which to ask if she could use the washroom. I have been out trick-or-treating before, in a diaper, and it is damned convenient. However, I decided not to make the obvious association to my situation, and let the moment pass. 

Then, Dave said that someone had removed his laundry from the washing machine, to jump ahead in line, as it were, likely one of his kids. He said he was now running out of underwear, and would have to go digging around in the corners of drawers to find an old pair, until the wash was done. Again, I could have offered him some of mine - never worn, neatly folded, and straight out of the package. However, I let it be. 

After that, Anne then asked Dave what the best way was to dry one of their dog mats that is essentially a towel sewn onto a vinyl backing, and I had the thought that I could have brought up my lined plastic pants; Anne had seen me in them, under shorts, at least once, and anyway, they all know I wear diapers, so perhaps we could compare notes. But I decided, again, to leave it. It's nice that being in diapers has become so accepted as to feel almost normal, but that didn't mean we needed to talk about it every time we see each other. 

We had coffee and some croissants, and then I got a ride to the pub, where I'd left my car the previous night. I  threw my bag in the trunk and drove home, deciding much later, that I would unpack the bag, while putting away some laundry. Sifting through the bag, I made a horrifying discovery: the previous night's BeDry, which I'd bagged before I went to bed, wasn't in there. I recalled that my bag had tumbled off a chair across from the bed in their guest room, while I was packing it up, disgorging my shaving kit. Apparently, it had also disgorged one balled-up, 5-lb diaper, in a white plastic bag, that I hadn't noticed. 

So, it was (and is) either under the chair, or it slid or rolled a bit under the bed across from the chair. The trip over to the bed was about 36 inches, and a wet diaper doesn't exactly roll like a ball, so I would bet that, if it's under the bed, it's close to the edge, and quite possibly visible, and if it's under the chair, then it's very visible, because the flooring around the chair is essentially devoid of clutter. 

I was debating going back there this afternoon, but they were out, and I had things to do, and saying that I'd "left some laundry in the guest bedroom" wouldn't exactly constitute an emergency, since I'm pretty much the only one who uses that room, except when they have family staying. I probably will try and go by tomorrow, when I know they're home, and I'm sure that Dave would be up for an afternoon beer on his deck, or at his kitchen table. However, I am slightly concerned that if they leave the door to that guest bedroom open, their dog might find the fascinatingly-scented bag I'd left behind, and do something unspeakable with it; think Trainspotting, but with wet fluff strewn about their bedroom and/or kitchen, instead of wet poop. The door is usually closed, because they don't trust him in rooms they don't frequent much, as he can get into mischief. So hopefully, the Universe won't mess with me that hard. 

But, still, I can't leave it to ferment in there until next weekend - it could start smelling gross, and it would be an unpleasant thing to find, while dusting, or whatever. SO, I will have to go back, and come up with some reason to go remove a bag with something the weight of a dead chicken stuffed inside it, from their guest bedroom. They won't mind, they're lovely people, but therein lies the conundrum: they're so nice to me, so, do I spare them the gory details, invent a cover story, and just go retrieve the bag with the nappy in it, and try to disguise it as something else, maybe wrap it in a sweater, or whatever, and spirit it away, while at the same time knowing that they might know something was up, because first of all, I'm not a good storyteller, face to face, and second, it would be entirely possible that when I called and said I needed to stop by and retrieve my sweater, or whatever, that Anne for sure, and possibly Dave, would have then gone to have a look for it, in any case? 

I once lost a adult-sized pacifier in the same room, that I found a week later, but that's easy enough to stuff in your pocket, and to just say, "I think my phone charger is in there", or whatever. 

OR, do I bite the bullet with these good friends, and just call them up - it'll probably be Anne, as Dave never answers his phone - and say, "Right, this is a little bit embarrassing, but I believe I've left a bag somewhere around the foot of the bed in your guestroom, and it has a diaper in it, that I'd intended to take back with me, for disposal, but I think it fell out of my bag. I'm going to come by and retrieve it, if that's okay..."

Thus, was I delivered from having squibbed on three openings to make some kind of wisecrack about my being in diapers, only to find myself now having to call them up, specifically to talk about just that. Or, say I left my medication in the room, and hope I can get that bulbous bag through their kitchen, living room, and front entrance, and out to my car, without incurring any visual interrogations. I guess I have until tomorrow to decide. 

[CptKirk]

I'd be straight...call up, tell them the truth as i GUARANTEE they'll appreciate it VS discovering it by accident! Being they know you wear? You risk nothing and PREVENT a friendship altering event. I have left wet diapers (and 1 dirty on) in friend's bathrooms, and INSTANTLY either call thm to tell them OR IF I remember BEFORE I am too far way, turn around and grab it.

Sounds like VERY GOOD FRIENDS....why risk an issue that can change that?

As I have stated before, everyone who is anyone to me in my life KNOWS....so there's no surprises when I need to change, when staying over, laying down several reusable underpads...it has honestly become 2nd nature with no questions, and I am positive you'll get the same reaction, calling, telling them the truth, going over and grabbing it.

You have this in the bag (sounds like you & Dave were last night anyway LOL) which is always nice LOL.

 

 

[Slomo]

I'd also recommend just being honest. They aready know, and don't care, about your diapers. What good can come from trying to cover it up and lie about it now?

[Little Sherri]

I'm taking a middle ground with the situation at Dave & Anne's; knowing that I'll be around their house either later today, or tomorrow, I'm going to stop by, and say that I think I left "something" in their guest bedroom, and if they ask what I forgot, I'm going to say that I suspect I might have left a diaper in a bag, somewhere in there, but my recollection of events is poor, because of the beer Dave made me drink. I won't mislead them, but neither am I straight up calling them and asking if they can check if I left a diaper somewhere in their house. Although I'm about 99% sure it's in there - I very much doubt I threw it in the bathroom garbage can, for example, as I never do that. 

I had some uncommonly positive diaper feedback around the house this morning. I was doing my usual weekend routine of cleaning all the bathrooms, in just a diaper, a t-shirt, and plastic sandals. A disposable outfit is perfect for cleaning bathrooms, and particularly, for shower stalls, since I can use the hand wand to power-wash the tile and the glass, after scrubbing it, and any back-spatter is of no consequence. My family is used to this routine; I always start by letting them know that I'll be cleaning the bathrooms in a bit, if anyone needs to use one; I put bowl cleaner in all the bowls, to let the chemicals chew away at the soil, and I spray down the shower stalls, and tub, and then I let everything sit for a few minutes, so effectively, all the bathrooms get taken out of service for 45 minutes or so. But, it also serves as fair warning that I'm in there, in my "cleaning suit", so enter at your own risk. 

I was walking back and forth between the washrooms, and I crossed paths with my wife in the kitchen, when I went to retrieve some Windex, to clean the mirror in the powder bathroom. 

"Cute diaper - are those new?", she asked me, taking me by surprise - she almost never comments on my plastic underpants, and when she does, it's usually sarcastic. However, there was no sarcasm in her tone, that I could detect, and I'm like a seismograph, when it comes to her sarcasm. I pick up most of it. 

I was in a Rearz Barnyard, which I haven't bought in a long time; I had to check to confirm, and indeed, I was correct in my supposition that they are out of production. I don't know when that happened, but it's been a while. Back in the day, I'd ordered a case of them in Large, after having XL's, I think, and finding them too big, but by then, Rearz changed their sizing rubric, making XL's the best fit for me, in most models, and the L's more like mediums. Barnyards also subscribe to that older Rearz characteristic of having the hook/loop mesh landing zone terminate, a good couple of inches from the edges of the front of the diaper, so, they became essentially single-tab diapers for me, as I could not make the bottom tabs reliably stay on the landing zone. I burned through a couple of the bags, but as I was also in the process of gaining a bit of weight (thanks, Covid...), they eventually weren't that useful for me, and I relegated them to my bottom-most storage container for odds and ends, such as the sleeve of Princess Pinks that also doesn't fit very well, and that would constitute another rare product that might elicit a comment from my betrothed, and not a positive one. 

Both of those diapers harken back to a time when I mostly wore slim, medical disposables during the day, things like Prevail and Tena and Tranquility, and Active Air's if I really wanted some extra fuel in the tank, whereas the "real" ABDL diapers were for home use, as I wasn't comfortable being out in the world in bulkier products. I remember walking the dog at night, wearing a Barnyard, and thinking I wasn't going to encounter anyone, and then I ended up in a conversation with one of my former neighbours, and I was sure that she knew. Whereas now, there isn't a diaper in my disposable inventory, that I couldn't wear somewhere - maybe not to a wedding, but certainly, for a night at the bar, or to go fetch a 5 LB tub of mayonnaise from Costco or whatever. 

I was updating my diaper inventory, because the spreadsheet I use somehow got corrupted, so I had to rebuild it, and I decided to take the time to document even the orphans lingering in the bottom of mostly-empty bags, and when I found that whole bag of Barnyards, I decided to try one, because I couldn't perfectly recall why they'd been relegated to the dead and slow section of my warehouse. What better way to use one, then while cleaning the bathrooms that I don't use as much as anyone else in our house? (An injustice, in my mind, but I do it because I do it better, and while wearing diapers has reduced the frequency of my potty visits a fair bit, I do still use the potties, and so I want them clean...) 

So, there I was, in my barnyard, worn as a single-tab diaper, with the lower part of the wing and the second tab tucked in, a fairly improbable sight, and somehow that getup, she finds "cute". 

"It's an older one, they don't actually make them anymore - I figured I'd use up some of the odds and ends. You like this one?"

"Well, it's not huge and medical-looking, like you've escaped from a mental ward. Those look like normal diapers," she observed. Which kind of blew my mind. I get what she was saying - a Barnyard, worn as a single-tab diaper, kind of looks like an 17/5ths-scale Pampers or Huggies product - they're not garishly coloured, nor overtly infantile, featuring just tan farm animals on a white background, and in a size L, which would be comparable to a medium in today's Rearz sizing, they didn't look absurdly big on me, either. 

But if you'd asked me, before this conversation, what my wife thought a "normal" diaper looks like, within the context of adult ones, I would not have guessed that she'd be picturing an oversized version of a commercial toddler diaper, I'd have thought she would be picturing some generic white thing with blue tapes. You learn something new everyday. 

[Little Sherri]

I had a bit of a hard conversation with my wife yesterday. I delayed writing about it here, but I've committed to detailing the smooth and the crunchy aspects of this strange journey I'm on, and this one was a bit crunchy. 

The argument stemmed from my glancing at my phone while she was talking to me; there is a common phenomenon among couples that she and I experience, and it goes along these lines: I spend all day in meetings, with employees and managers and customers, dealing with issues big and small, and fending off a snowstorm of emails between the meetings, and after 10 hours of that, my brain feels cooked. I want to eat dinner, watch some nerdy video on YouTube, doom-scroll the news, or otherwise generally turn most sectors in my brain off. She can have stressful days at work as well, there is no argument about that, and she is also the cruise director for a lot of my daughters' educational and recreational requirements, although that workload is not what it used to be, now that they are both at an age where they can legally drive.  

But, her job is of a more intermittent nature - she works from home, usually, and as often as not, if I go over to the house at 3 or 4 in the afternoon, to grab a cup of tea or whatever, she might be taking a nap, or cutting up vegetables for dinner, while watching a show, usually one involving British people baking. Later, I stumble back from my office, with steam coming out of my ears, and all I want to do is not think for a bit. Which is often the first time we've seen each other since yesterday when we turned out the lights - I'm usually up before she is, and have often had my coffee and strapped into my office chair, by the time she gets up. 

Ergo, she wants to download whatever she has on her mind, to me - it could be arcane details about what my younger daughter is supposed to be working on for homework, or something related to her business, as it intersects with our finances, or she starts telling me that I need to remember something that I'm not going to remember, unless she puts it in a text or an email, so I can put it in my calendar, and in the meantime I have my video about axial flow motors or a crumbling dam in India on pause, or I'm trying to keep my place in an article about modular nuclear reactors. I'm a dork, I get it. 

So, there is already a disconnect - specifically, I want to disconnect, and she wants to connect. Then, add to that, that I happened to get a text from a buddy that required a one-emoji response, a thumbs-up - "Hey, are we going to go do that thing later this week?" (👍). 

So, I looked away from her, and away from my dinner, to tap out a one-symbol response, just to get that off my plate, and she threw a hissy fit. Now, yes, I agree, particularly as a person who lives with teenaged children, that preferring the company of your phone, over the person speaking with you live, can be interpreted as disrespectful, or dismissive.

However, I have to submit to the jury that my wife is famous, internationally, for multitasking during conversations, with whatever she is streaming on in the background through one Air Pod, while she pulls out the other one, to hear you. AND, she is known to, if she doesn't like the topic or the tone of the conversation, just put the Air Pod back in, and tune you out. "I can't deal with this right now", she'll say, dismissively, and that, friends, is the end of the conversation, unless I want to escalate it to the level of a dispute. 

SO, my one-keying a response to a text, in comparison, is a small transgression, in my opinion. But not in hers. 

Her: "What are you, a child? You can't even look at me while I'm talking to you? I'm trying to tell you something important here, and you're texting with your friends like a 12-year-old girl...." She went on from there. 

Me: "If what you have to tell me is so important, can we skip the editorializing, and can I just have the news? I'm uninterested in your opinion of my dinner table etiquette, at this hour. I'm exhausted. Just tell me what I need to know."

Her: "Well, now I'm not going to tell you. If you're going to be rude, then I'm done with this conversation."

Me: "It mustn't be very important, then, so I'm fine with that. May I carry on with my dinner, and watch my video?"

Her: "If that's more important to you than I am, then I guess you can."

Me: (Sigh). "First of all, you talk to me with half an eye, and some show playing, all the time, so I don't think you're one to be casting stones on this topic. Second, if there is actually some nugget of important information, in the Library of Congress you seem to want to share with me, can I just have that? If it's important, I want to hear it. Otherwise, I'd like a few minutes to just zone out - you've said those exact words to me, and I don't object when you do."

Her: "No, you'll have to figure it out for yourself, I've gotten the message, I'm done talking."

Me: "Well if the car insurance is being cancelled, or something like that, and you are now withholding that from me, out of spite, then you, my dear, are being the child in this situation. So I'm going to assume, again, that whatever it is, doesn't rise to the level of importance where it would be worth burning this much oxygen over it, and I'm going to go back to doing what I was doing."  Then, I looked back at my iPad, which had now gone to sleep. 

Her: "You wear DIAPERS. Do you hear me? DIAPERS. You're calling me a child, and you're sitting there in oversized Pampers. That's laughable." Then, she threw in some fake laughter. 

I shrugged, picked up my dinner plate and my iPad, and went back to my office, but inside, I was hurt, I have to admit. Her shouting the D-word at me twice, and then underlining it with the P-word, was a bit like getting verbally smacked in the face, and my face burned, a bit like I had been smacked. And then I had to try and mount a dignified, unhurried strut away, while hearing the crunching, and feeling the pendulous bulk of my 18-hour-old BeDry Night Premium, that was, at least, covered by a pair of shorts. But not heavy ones. 

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: being in an argument with anyone, while obviously wearing a diaper, tests your metal; it just begs for an ad hominem retort. The fact that the conversation had nothing whatsoever to do with my infantile underpants preferences, and that it pivoted so sharply and so harshly, straight in that direction, tells me that she has underlying frustrations, that she is usually able to keep a lid on. Compounding the smarting of my dignity, was the fact that my older daughter, I knew, was right outside the kitchen, working on a resume in the dining room. I had to walk past her, too, although she gave me a sympathetic smile. She's been in fights with her mom before. 

Later, when I had to return to the marital suite, my diaper was absolutely at the end of its rope, and that's saying something, for a BeDry Night. Usually, I'd have duffed my shorts, as soon as I walked into the room, but I couldn't stand the idea of waddling past her in a giant soggy diaper on this night, so I quietly, and without looking at her, retrieved an Inspire+ from my diaper drawer - neither could I imagine walking by her, with a Critter Caboose in my hand. I went into the washroom and showered and changed, and only then, once in a pristine and unremarkable nappy, did I emerge. Although I still had to carry the outgoing garment, now the weight of a dead tabby, to my diaper bin, and I tossed the shorts into the laundry - I suspected they might have seen  a bit of wee at the leg gathers. I put on my most staid, grey sleeping shirt, and silently got into bed, leaving my pacifier to the last minute, right when the lights went out. 

This morning, I had to leave early, for a work appointment, and I was gone all day. I wore an Active Air, that needed to be changed as soon as I got home, which was about 90 minutes ago. Right now, I'm sitting in a Crinklz, only because the last remaining white diaper in my drawer, was an ATN, which is more or less useless. I need to restock my drawer, but I don't feel like doing that, until I have some time to myself, whereas usually, I'd happily arrange my diapers while we chat, or she watches a show. So I guess I will look like I'm wearing oversized Pampers, if she seems it at some point later tonight. Maybe Huggies would be more accurate, but I won't point that out...

[oznl]

I was greatly amused by the asymmetrical expectations with respect to mobile compute device usage during social interactions.

My beloved has been known to pick up her phone and start texting one of the kids whilst (I thought at least) we were conversing. 

I’ll ask “What’s happening inside your phone?” and the answer is invariably “Nothing.”

I call it “phone-snubbing”.  I just put up with it.  It’s just a price of being married.

Lord help me if I pick up a tablet and start doing a Sudoku beside her whilst we (she mainly) is watching one of those interminable Netflix medical dramas.  I can feel a freezing microclimate enveloping me.

For the life of me I can’t recall a specific example of her throwing my nappy use back at me directly as a pejorative.  She’s certainly made (and at a somewhat reduced level, continues to make) her displeasure at my choices known but it’s not been used as an insult.   I suspect (we NEVER talk about this because she doesn’t want to) she regards my behavioural foible as a kind of mental disability which places it beyond mocking.

[DiaperboyEddie12]

@Little Sherri @oznl

When I am home and having dinner with friends that I am staying with or at my real home with family.  I sometimes use the cell.  Though if I am out having dinner or lunch with either friends or family definitly my brother if I am out with him.  I want to talk to him not the phone.  As he lives not close by so when I do get to have either lunch or dinner I want to converse with him not the wall.

And I call him out on it and have many of times.  That is one of my pet peaves.

There is nothing on that phone that imporant that we have to be on it right away to converse with another person while we are eating.

My cell is on silent all the time.  If someone needs to get ahold of me they can either leave a message or text me and I will get back to them later on.

[oznl]

39 minutes ago, DiaperboyEddie12 said:

And I call him out on it and have many of times.  That is one of my pet peaves.

This option is only available to you because you are not married to him 🤣