24/7 startups, and unexpected pitfalls?

[Little Sherri]

From the "best laid plans" file... when I conceived a day of cloth-diaper lounging, I forgot that there's one thing I haven't had to do lately in the mornings, because everyone is always home: walk the dog. Which I might be able to do wearing a cloth diaper, on a dark morning in the dead of winter, wearing snow pants, but which I can't do on a bright summer morning, in shorts. My cloth diapers are just too bulky; looking at myself this morning in the mirror, I couldn't muster the confidence to walk up the street with what looked like a small throw pillow jammed in my pants. So off came the cloth diaper and on went a Bambino Classico, which is a diaper I can confidently wear under the right shorts. As a side note to that, it occurred to me the other day, when I was walking around in, I think, a Lil' Monster, under the cargo shorts that have become my summer uniform, that part of the reason why, as many of you have long been telling me, pretty much nobody notices when I wear a diaper, is this: guys with typical middle-aged "dad bodies" who wear loose cargo shorts almost all look a bit like they're wearing a diaper. It must be harder for women, who are expected to wear more form-fitting shorts or pants, generally. I guess dresses or skirts might help conceal the bulk of a diaper. 

So although I didn't get much daytime use out of my cloth diaper, I am making the best of having the house to myself; I'm working in the living room, in just a diaper and a t-shirt, and I have a pacifier clipped to my shirt, in case a compulsion strikes me. I sleep with one every night but I had found myself occasionally resorting to one during the day if I had a detailed task to work on - I find it helps me concentrate, although I haven't been in the mood to use one during the day in a long while, mostly because, while I can sit in my office with a diaper under my clothes, and anyone that comes barging in, as happens at least a couple of times every day, would be none-the-wiser, it's harder to make a surreptitious panicked grab for a pacifier.

In other news, I'm pretty sure that my neighbour's 20-something daughter saw my diaper yesterday. I had the garage open and I was squatting down in front of my beer fridge, fiddling with a lower shelf that had frozen itself to the back of the fridge. The fridge is in and around the corner from the open door, and nobody was out there with me, so I didn't have my usual diaper discretion protocols in place, such as tucking in my t-shirt or wearing a onesie. I heard shoes shuffling on the concrete, and I assumed it was my wife, probably preparing to load the car for their imminent departure, so I said something like "Hey, what's up?" without turning around right away, and then I got a reply from an unfamiliar voice, asking if I had a barbecue lighter I could loan her for a moment. I resisted the urge to jump straight up and pull my shirt down, figuring that it would only draw further attention to my area of concern, being my waist at the back. I wasn't sure that my diaper was showing, but I suspected it was. I stood up and turned and chatted with her for a moment, the entire time wanting to reach back and check, but I ignored the compulsion to do so. I turned and walked through the inside door that leads into our laundry room to fetch a lighter, and as soon as the spring-loaded door clicked shut behind me, my hand shot to the back of my shorts. There was definitely some diaper standing up above my waist, but had my shirt concealed it? I did a quick test squat in the laundry room and reached back to check again... and, at least THAT time, the lower edge of my shirt was riding an inch or more above the waist of my shorts... and tracing the gap with my finger confirmed the smooth plastic edge of the diaper was accessible without lifting the shirt at all. Ergo, she most likely got a view of it. 

I pulled my shorts up and my shirt down, but I resisted the urge to tuck the shirt in, thinking that doing so might further highlight the situation, and I walked back into the garage and handed her the lighter. To her credit, her face betrayed no confusion, curiosity or concern. She thanked me, took the lighter, and went back to her house, and I hurriedly packed up my fridge, knowing she would likely be right back. I was standing putting tools back when she returned, and this time she knocked on the other, closed garage door, before walking in, again making me think that she saw something the first time, and wanted to give me a chance to stand up, if I were crouched back down. The diaper I had on was an Elite in Medium, which is a plain white diaper - at least it didn't feature pink and blue sea horses, or baby blocks, like this Bambino I'm in now...

If she did see it, which seems likely, and if she knew what it was, which is maybe a tad less definite, I guess I have to hope that from her relatively young perspective, I, in my 40's, am an old man, and so I may have been complicit in further skewing her ideas about what's "old" and what's not, somewhat like my kids throwing around the "Okay, boomer" line toward people in their 30's and 40's. Maybe to her I'm just one of those confident, silver-haired men from a Depends ad, taking life's lemons and making lemonade out of them, out on the golf course or playing with the grandchildren, not letting a leaky faucet get in their way. 

[DL-Boy]

@Little Sherri, the thing I would note in the situation with the visible waistband is that there are teens and young adults out there that practice some degree of considerate discretion rather than rude ridicule. If she saw the waistband which as you say she probably did, and if she knew (or cared) what it was, it is to her credit and no doubt to her upbringing that she said nothing at all.

[BlakeJordan]

I’ll also add that we see what we believe, not believe what we see.

The brain has a particular talent for disregarding infinity that doesn’t fit a preconceived mental model.

There is a concept “default to truth” that unless something is overwhelmingly impossible to ignore, reconcile, or make sense of- we pay it no mind.

My suspicion is that it went unnoticed completely and was likely filtered out before she was even consciously aware of it.

Not a popular opinion and one that is counterintuitive.

[oznl]

The color and construction of the waist band of an exposed undergarment is doubtless intensely obvious in the context of YOU (preserving a potentially embarrassing secret) but largely out-of-scope in the context of somebody wanting to borrow a barbecue lighter from you.

In line with @BlakeJordan's comment, I’d be 85% that it got filtered out before visual processing.

Another 10% says that she saw it but the Douglas Adam’s “Somebody Else’s Problem” field kicks in and again, it gets filtered out, just at a slightly later stage of processing.

5% says it’s currently on Instagram/Reddit/Tumbler or whatever else Millennials use for broadcasting but without pictures, it is nothing and would be forgotten after 23 minutes…

[Little Sherri]

11 hours ago, oznl said:

5% says it’s currently on Instagram/Reddit/Tumbler or whatever else Millennials use for broadcasting but without pictures, it is nothing and would be forgotten after 23 minutes…

 

I couldn't see that post getting much traction... "The old guy who lives next door - he must be at least 40 - wears diapers." "Ewww, gross", or "That's too bad", or "Weird... anyway, Kanye wants to be President? Finally, a steady hand on the tiller...."

I think I've determined that I need to get a diaper bag. I don't know how I've gone this long without one, but I think it probably has to do with most of my travel over the last two years involving suitcases. Since I already traveled with a laptop bag typically, and either a carry-on or checked bag (usually gate-checked back when such things were possible), I interspersed my supplies between those diminutive vessels, and didn't add another bag that I would then have had to possibly pay to carry. I'd have maybe two diapers in my laptop bag, and the rest in the suitcase, plus some disposal bags and a small tub of nappy cream. I would forego baby powder when travelling. However, joining my family at a friend's cottage, I am going to create a separate bag that I can leave in my car - a few daytime diapers, a couple of nighttime ones, cream, bags, etc. I'm not picturing something that screams diapers - maybe a black backpack with some useful pockets in it. Still haven't sorted out exactly how I am going to navigate beach days when the facilities are all boarded up. I guess I'll draw a hard line in the sand with the kids and say I'm swimming now, later is for reading and quiet drinking - let's play the water games now... Normally we'd be in and out of the lake throughout the day.

[Luvs24]

8 hours ago, Little Sherri said:

I couldn't see that post getting much traction... "The old guy who lives next door - he must be at least 40 - wears diapers." "Ewww, gross", or "That's too bad", or "Weird... anyway, Kanye wants to be President? Finally, a steady hand on the tiller...."

I think I've determined that I need to get a diaper bag. I don't know how I've gone this long without one, but I think it probably has to do with most of my travel over the last two years involving suitcases. Since I already traveled with a laptop bag typically, and either a carry-on or checked bag (usually gate-checked back when such things were possible), I interspersed my supplies between those diminutive vessels, and didn't add another bag that I would then have had to possibly pay to carry. I'd have maybe two diapers in my laptop bag, and the rest in the suitcase, plus some disposal bags and a small tub of nappy cream. I would forego baby powder when travelling. However, joining my family at a friend's cottage, I am going to create a separate bag that I can leave in my car - a few daytime diapers, a couple of nighttime ones, cream, bags, etc. I'm not picturing something that screams diapers - maybe a black backpack with some useful pockets in it. Still haven't sorted out exactly how I am going to navigate beach days when the facilities are all boarded up. I guess I'll draw a hard line in the sand with the kids and say I'm swimming now, later is for reading and quiet drinking - let's play the water games now... Normally we'd be in and out of the lake throughout the day.

My wife bought a diaper backpack for me, and she got it off amazon. 

[oznl]

12 hours ago, Little Sherri said:

I think I've determined that I need to get a diaper bag. I don't know how I've gone this long without one, but I think it probably has to do with most of my travel over the last two years involving suitcases. Since I already traveled with a laptop bag typically, and either a carry-on or checked bag (usually gate-checked back when such things were possible), I interspersed my supplies between those diminutive vessels, and didn't add another bag that I would then have had to possibly pay to carry. I'd have maybe two diapers in my laptop bag, and the rest in the suitcase, plus some disposal bags and a small tub of nappy cream. I would forego baby powder when travelling. However, joining my family at a friend's cottage, I am going to create a separate bag that I can leave in my car - a few daytime diapers, a couple of nighttime ones, cream, bags, etc. I'm not picturing something that screams diapers - maybe a black backpack with some useful pockets in it. Still haven't sorted out exactly how I am going to navigate beach days when the facilities are all boarded up. I guess I'll draw a hard line in the sand with the kids and say I'm swimming now, later is for reading and quiet drinking - let's play the water games now... Normally we'd be in and out of the lake throughout the day.

 

I have a "bag-within-a-bag".  This is a sober dark navy blue nylon "travel laundry" bag.  This was used back in the day when I used to travel.  It can contain enough nappies for up to about 4 days (plenty for my usual business trips) along with spare plastic pants, some plastic disposal bags and waterproof trainers for overnight.  I have a very small tube of rash cream that lives in my standard travel bathroom bag.  Being a travel thing, it folds up to the size of a handkerchief and weighs nothing unloaded.  It is even helpfully-labelled "laundry bag" so NOBODY wants to look inside.

 

[Little Sherri]

With some compromises, I was able to get through a long weekend spent at a cottage with seven people and one bathroom. I had to take up diapering myself in the bedroom I shared with my wife some of the time; the single bathroom was right off the main living area, and this cottage has no TV or wifi (I'm not sure how the kids survived it), so the sounds emanating from the great room were sometimes high-decibel - contentious card games or board games for example - and sometimes library quiet, the turning of pages and placing of puzzle pieces. During the latter scenario, I felt that there was no way I could put a diaper on in the bathroom; I could barely walk there in a diaper - it sounded from my perspective like the "crunch crunch" sounds coming from my underpants were echoing in the room. So wresting with a new diaper against that phonic backdrop seemed too conspicuous for me. 

So, in the bedroom it had to be. I couldn't see splaying myself out on the floor or the bed, like I normally would, with my wife right there, so, I basically followed the procedure that is sometimes detailed in the instruction panel on some of the more medical-focused diapers I've worn; I opened it up, folded it down the middle lengthwise, pulled it up between my legs, "tacked" one side on temporarily with a corner of an upper tape, landed an upper tape on the other side in what would hopefully be its final position, then went back to the first side again and snugged everything up, before turning to the lower tapes, adjusting leg gathers, etc. My wife cooperated in that she generally had headphones on and was watching a show on her phone, paying no attention to what I was up to as I swapped diapers in the shadows and bagged up the old one. 

For the time we spent on the beach, I had to compromise on my preference for being perpetually diapered, because the washroom facilities down there were shuttered due to the pandemic. So, for the high-heat hours of the early afternoon, I went down in a bathing suit and spent most of the time in the lake, tossing frisbees and splashing around with the kids, or swimming laps back and forth. Later, when it was time for a mid-afternoon snack, I would go back to the cottage, grab a cooler that had previously been stocked with rations, and at the same time, lose the bathing suit, donning shorts, a t-shirt and a nappy. When I returned, I was clearly wearing "dry clothes", and the kids did not repeatedly ask if i would come back into the water. Thus attired, we tossed a football on the beach, or everyone read a book, played cards, etc. The only thing missing was a frosty beer; it's technically illegal to drink on a public beach, although in practice, if you don't become a nuisance, people generally don't care. But this was not a drinking crowd, so I saved adult beverages for later, around the fire.

My single-tape experiment continues; I was able to, as far as I know, operate in my "medium-duty" plastic diapers undetected. The tapes on the Lil' Monsters in medium size, that I wore "single-taped", held up admirably to very hot and humid conditions, and to tasks such as chopping up firewood and relocating several rows of the stuff to a shed, plus hiking and bike rides. The fit of the leg gathers seems to have been in no way compromised by the geometry of fastening only the upper tapes; they proved to be reliable and leak free for as long as I was willing to push them, which sometimes meant I had a notable waddle as I walked back to my room at the end of the night. I wore an Elite in size large overnight - I had no interest in having to launder bedding because of a midnight miscalculation; that would have drawn the ire of my spouse for sure. 

Disposal was another issue; the owners of the cottage take the garbage back to the city with them for disposal, and I felt it would have been wrong, and also possibly dangerous, to send them home with several cheerfully-printed adult diapers amidst the other detritus our weekend generated. "I can't find my bracelet - I've checked through all the suitcases." "Well, have a look in the garbage bags - maybe it fell off when you were scraping plates or something...." And the rest is history, or, that's what plays through my mind's eye when I consider passing off custody of a weekend's diapers to longtime friends. So, I bagged them individually, tossing them into a kitchen bag I had brought for the purpose, and which I lugged back to my car under the guise of packing up laundry. 

[Little Sherri]

I wanted to add one more thought, which is that my parents have been somewhat "exonerated" as a result of my observations on this cottage trip. Background: I had a long-standing soft "grudge" against my parents regarding several incidents when I was a kid, when they packed up to head to the cottage, and picked me up from a camp or activity with my bag already packed and in the car, where I realized when we got up there, that they hadn't packed me any underwear - I had bathing suits and t-shirts and nightshirts and maybe one pair of shorts for trips into town, but no undies other than the pair I had on when they picked me up. The implication being that I would be in my bathing suit for most of the day, and sometimes well into the evening, and then I'd have a diaper on the rest of the time, and on the car ride back into the city (there was usually a box of diapers in my room at the cottage). Sometimes I put a diaper on under my clothes even before we departed, if it was later in the evening or there was a lot of traffic. I was annoyed at the time about not being consulted on this unilateral packing decision; when I packed my own bag, I always threw undies in, even if I sometimes never got a chance to wear them, in case we went into town, or over to someone's place for dinner, and so that I wouldn't have to spend a rainy day either "commando" or wearing a diaper under my shorts, just because I didn't have any other underwear option. 

Our friend's son wears pull-ups to bed, and I have to say that he seemed to be completely non-fussed about it - it was blisteringly hot up there, and he didn't have any concerns about walking around in a t-shirt and GoodNites before we headed to the beach, or when we played cards later in the evening once we got back from the lake. At his age (11), I would have been mortified about being dressed like that in front of a couple of girls - even the presence of my sister used to make me self-conscious, let alone girls I wasn't related to. Part of his admirable nonchalance may stem from the fact that until last year, my younger daughter also usually wore pull-ups to bed (a condition I assume she inherited from me...), and since they've more or less grown up together, I guess they behave a bit like siblings, and he just didn't think it was a big deal. I also think his parents have done a good job of not making him feel any judgement over a situation that is, essentially, entirely out of his control. It also helps that today's products try very hard not to carry the stigma of "diapers", whereas what I had to wear in the 1980's had to be taped on, and came out of a box with a picture of a baby on it.

Observing this over a few days, I had to concede that it probably did make sense, in retrospect, from my parents' perspective, not to pack underwear for me back then, because like I was at that age, the kids on this trip were basically either in their bathing suits or sleepwear, and almost nothing else. 

My wife asked my younger daughter if she would be willing to wear pull-ups to bed again while we were there, ostensibly in solidarity with their son, so that he wouldn't "feel bad" about it, although in reality she was also thinking about the preservation of our friends' bedding - accidents are very infrequent now, but an "incident" would have been quite inconvenient. They proved to be unnecessary in any case, but, the point is, we engaged in a conversation with her about it, rather than making a high-handed decision. And, I'm assuming, my wife didn't omit underwear from her overnight bag. I think its very likely that this generation will have suffered little or no long-term "trauma" over their nighttime protection, unlike many of us from prior generations, who, for example, end up writing a blog like this one...

[Billy_Meyer_]

Who has gone over to the damp side, 24/7/365, or at least 24/7 for a significant period, and what was it like? Have you made a complete break with big people undies? What were those first few days and weeks like? Any unexpected problems or rewards? Have you managed to stick with it, do you go back and forth, or have you had to abandoned the diaper dream? Do family & friends know, or have you been diapered on the down low?  I may have a chance this summer to live full-time in diapers for a few weeks, and I'm trying to think of what I need to prepare for and what issues might crop up. Thanks for your thoughts. 

I have over a year and half ago. I wear 24 / 365. Wear everywhere. I takes a bit getting used to. You have to carry extra diapers supplies. Clothes just in case you have a bad problem. Sometimes finding a place to change can be a problem and there's times you cant. I wear North Shore mega max at night and Air Supreme cloth backed days and hot weather. I've wore for many years off and on. Untill I went 24/ 7. I do have incontinence problems and they have gotten worse. But no embarrassing accidents. And peace of mind means a lot

Sent from my LGL322DL using Tapatalk

[Little Sherri]

Some normalcy has returned to the household, with my older daughter... gasp!.... having to get up in the morning and assist at a day camp. This marks the first time, pretty much since March, that she's had to set her alarm. The camp is outdoors and they're being carefully to socially distance, and the numbers are restricted, and they're required to wear masks, but still, this marks a slight course correction back towards what life was like in the before-times. 

Taking pleasure in the little things, I noted that for the first time in a while, my wife and I both got up and got dressed at the same time; these days, it's usually been me getting up and slipping out of the room to get in front of my laptop for work, while the rest of the crew rises at their leisure. Our alarms went off at the same time, and we both hopped up and went into the bathroom to throw some water onto our faces, then came out and got dressed. I was in the midst of pulling a pair of shorts up over a slightly-sagging Rearz Lil' Monster, which opened up a rare conversation wherein the "d" word comes up. "Aren't you going to change.... that?" Her tone was friendly, so I took it as an opportunity to lightly touch on a topic that, truthfully, hasn't been spoken of up to now: my habits and/or philosophies with respect to daytime wearing. 

"I'll change it later this morning. It's only heavy at the front, because of how I slept. The rest of it is dry."

"But isn't it... uncomfortable?"

"Not at all. This is a very comfortable diaper - good ones like this, you can't even really tell how wet they are." This was met with a shrug, and then we moved on to another topic, as I zipped the shorts up and pulled a shirt on. Once again, I was able to silently marvel in the reality that I wear diapers now. 

On a related topic, and I don't think I touched on this when it happened, although I meant to, being "out of the closet" about diapers allowed me to, for the first time, talking like an excited kid with my wife about what a smoking deal I got on a case of diapers at the Rearz warehouse sale (though as an aside, back when I was a kid, I was never very excited when a new box of Pampers came into the house...). Anyway,  I think she was impressed with what I paid - about $40 for a case that would have been $90, giving me three bags of high-quality printed diapers for about $13 each, well below what even a bag of junk drugstore diapers usually cost. However, I could see that she was somewhat exasperated that my infantile underwear is now taking up three shelves in the storage area in our basement. Plus a shelf in our walk-in closet. Sorry - two shelves - I forgot about the cloth diapers and plastic pants. Also a drawer in my bedside dresser. "Turning" my inventory has become a fun weekend routine for me; I usually operate out of the dresser drawer, which holds 9 diapers in three stacks - about 4 days worth, generally. I then replenish the drawer from my closet shelf, which houses about 12 - 15 diapers; I try to keep the closet cached with a representative sampling of what I have in stock in the basement, with stacks of two or three each, of five or six different models, some slim diapers or medium sizes of a larger style for day wear, and then some size large, high capacity diapers for nighttime use, such as BetterDry's and Elites and Alpacas. I don't suppose pointing out that I no longer keep "big boy" underwear in our room at all would get me many points with her. 

I suppose I should create an inventory system at some point, in a spreadsheet, to keep track of my stock. I would organize it by category, and then by model, so that I'll know what I need to order, without having to pull apart three shelves and start counting. I may need to go through a "rationalization" process, and settle on maybe four core models to religiously keep in stock; right now, I think I have 13 different diaper types on the go, if my count is correct - sorry, 14 - I forgot about the Princess Pink sample packs I've had for a couple of years - I can only wear one of those per quarter without alarming my spouse. 

One question I have for myself is if I will seek to replace my really slim daytime diapers, that I used to wear to work, the Prevail 360's. I have a definite preference for plastic-backed diapers, and given that I'm currently working from home 100% of the time, I've gotten quite comfortable and confident about wearing a medium-duty plastic diaper under cargo shorts during the day, and while running errands, etc. But, if things ever return to "normal", will I be willing to wear a crinkly plastic diaper under dress pants? This might be where I come back around to getting more compression garments into my system. Although the counterpoint to that is the fact that the Prevails are amazingly inexpensive when bought by the case, and they punch above their weight in terms of capacity; given that I don't tend to test the limits of my nappy when I'm away from the house, it will be considerably less costly to burn through a couple of Prevails in a day than my printed ABDL diapers. 

 

[BlakeJordan]

[mention]Little Sherri [/mention]

I completely get the inventory thing!
From my own personal anecdote… Yes I know I occasionally do have those instead of my typical detached “just the facts ma’am, just the facts “.

I was doing some cleaning of my own storage closet, with the help of a close friend Who knows eyewear and, because of a physical limitation, will help me prep my diapers.

Anyways during the cleaning out of the closet, some diaper prep, and a new shipment just arriving, she half jokingly suggested I make an inventory of not only what stuff I had in what storage bins, but also what diapers I had, when my next auto order was, where said diapers were... “c’mon you’re at risk of running out of room with your stock here...skipping the next auto order certainly wouldn’t hurt!”

I fully acknowledge that I’m very lucky to have such a friend. While I have yet to disclose and likely never will, the fact that I enjoy diapers even before my stars aligned and they become medically necessary, I imagine it’s crossed her mind.

I did end up doing some sort of organizational system to see what I had and didn’t, and kept tracking how many changes I have on any given day, and how many of each diaper I use daily.

I realized that my auto ship orders reflected the before times, and the fact that at that point in time I was more likely to flood a diaper than to have smaller wettings. This has led to about 1 less diaper on average a day.

I actually tracked down the manufacturer of several of the big companies we (our community) uses, and have been ever so tempted to make an order at some point. Alas I simply don’t have the room. Though, even with shipping and storage in a monthly unit it would come out to less than 50% of the price/day of my current monthly costs.

My big concerns were shelf life though. Still if I could find someone near by to go in on it with me, it might be worth it at some point.

Okay, moving on.to the topic of daily wear outside of the hone. The best thing I’ve found is samples, lots of samples. That and “practicing” for a regular or expected environment such as office (do they still have those or are they now high rise condos?) practices. I’ve found for that peace of mind a high quality booster in a slimmer diaper does the trick. Mostly it helps with absorption, leak protection, wicking, and support. I’ve found that the thinner diapers also have less sturdy plastic shells that tend to sag.

I’ve also found that I’ve become habituated to the higher absorption abilities and, when combined with rarely noticing, or remembering when I wet has lead to leaks due to not scheduling in a diaper change “whether I need it or not” simply due to the lack of awareness.

One thing that was overlooked for me is that my critical points of failure are in different areas, and I have to take different precautions for the same diaper when changed in a stall, vs at home. This could simply be me, but I find the space requirements to impact my fit (changing in a stall/being cramped) even if the diaper, supplies, technique does not. Perhaps something to do with posture, stance etc? I’ve also noticed that for discretionary disposal, all other things like bulk visibility aside, that it’s best to add an extra change midday. Otherwise I end up having swelled up bag that is anything but discreet.

I ended up with a hook n loop/Velcro (the new xp diaper) with a small liner down the middle. This keeps the noise down both during changing and crinkle. The limited capacity is something of a commitment device and a feature, as it slows for tighter compression pants, and forces me to change every 4 hours. All of which help with the above issues. It does kinda suck that the shell is weak sauce, (or crust? I dunno). This necessities either compression or the booster, and usually for peace of mind- both. The wicking factor on those also sucks- and leaks are more common a the upper half does t help with capacity or “even swelling”.

The point of this rant is to take advantage of the sample options for different fits, absorption levels, materials etc. I was actually quite surprised with the final solution as I would have assumed that with all the problems described the final outcome would be failure. Alas it’s about finding the right tools for the job and a single piece of the puzzle may be I adequate and frankly counterproductive but the finished solution can exceed the sum of its parts.

[Little Sherri]

18 hours ago, BlakeJordan said:

One thing that was overlooked for me is that my critical points of failure are in different areas, and I have to take different precautions for the same diaper when changed in a stall, vs at home. This could simply be me, but I find the space requirements to impact my fit (changing in a stall/being cramped) even if the diaper, supplies, technique does not. Perhaps something to do with posture, stance etc? I’ve also noticed that for discretionary disposal, all other things like bulk visibility aside, that it’s best to add an extra change midday. Otherwise I end up having swelled up bag that is anything but discreet.

I definitely agree that where and how I'm able to put a diaper on can effect its capacity and reliability. When I can, I lay a diaper down, either on my bed (infrequent) or on a long bath mat we have on the bathroom floor in front of the tub (most common these days), and sit on it and lie back and assume the 'frog leg' position. Thus positioned, I can really snug up the upper tapes or tabs, and then I will stand up so that the diaper is in the position it will be in for most of the time I'm in it, and then I snug up the lower tapes/tabs, pull the leg gathers out, and tuck the wings back. The result is a very reliable fit for walking, driving, sitting in an office chair, etc. 

However, for example last weekend at a friend's cottage, I generally had to diaper myself while standing, which took a lot more tugging and repositioning to achieve what felt like a decent fit. I am also a veteran of doing that in bathroom stalls in airports or offices, and in those confined spaces, it's even more difficult to get the desired fit. If you add to that audio concerns, such as in an office bathroom, where the repeated pulling of tapes and crinkling of the shell might sound as loud and alarming as gunfire from my perspective, I might just have to "make do" with a mediocre fit and know that I can't push the boundaries, and might have to either change the diaper sooner, or, at least adjust it. Aircraft washrooms add their own layer of complexity - you don't have to worry about noise anymore, but, striving to not make contact with any of the vile surfaces, while changing in a footprint not much larger than a mop bucket, is not easy. Plus you generally have to transport the fallen soldier back with you - those little trash receptacles were not designed to accept an adult diaper.

And keep in mind that I'm only using my diaper for #1... I can only imagine the complexity that having to clean up after #2 would bring to the table. 

18 hours ago, BlakeJordan said:

My big concerns were shelf life though.

I haven't found this to be an issue. I have some sample packs and a few of the last in the case of this or that, that have been around for a couple of years, and they seem to work fine. The glue on the tapes has held up and nothing has changed with respect to the polymer or stuffing. As long as they're not in a damp environment, I think they have a pretty long shelf life. 

 

18 hours ago, BlakeJordan said:

has lead to leaks due to not scheduling in a diaper change “whether I need it or not” simply due to the lack of awareness.

I've never really scheduled "whether I need them or not" diaper changes, but it's an interesting concept. Right now while I'm working from home, it's relatively safe to push the limits on a diaper, because I can get changed essentially whenever I want to. Plus, I've been able to wear higher-capacity diapers then I did when I was leaving the house on occasion for work, so a lot of the time, I'm able to have two-diaper days right now; a heavy-duty overnight diaper might make it to 2:00 in the afternoon (unless I will likely be called upon to do something outside of my office, and concealment is more of an issue), and then I can put on a medium-duty diaper and stay in that until 8 or 9 PM when it's time to put another nighttime diaper on. 

I have found myself changing preemptively if I know that I'm coming into an afternoon of back-to-back meetings where I might not get a chance to later, and, back when I traveled for work, I used sometimes change prior to a long drive or a flight or whatever. But, recently, I've been experiencing "phantom continual dribbling", which goes like this: I never wet while I'm awake without saying "go" to the process, but once the green light has been received, the equipment seems to go on autopilot, and I often can't tell if I'm still going or not - I rarely use the "stop" command these days. So, sometimes I'll realize from other feedback (such as trickling or swelling) that I'm still going, OR, sometimes I'll feel what I swear are spurts coming out, but there's no evidence to back up my impression. It's like that aspect of quantum theory where observation seems to change the behaviour of a particle; if I were to stand up and pull the front of my diaper open to try to confirm my sensation, the act of doing so would end the phenomenon. But, I have found myself in an unexpectedly wet diaper when I've become distracted by work or whatever and stopped paying attention for a couple of hours, occasionally causing me to wonder if I shouldn't throw a reminder into Outlook or into my phone to "NC" (nappy-check) at some point mid-afternoon. 

Speaking of unexpected diaper phenomenon, my ongoing single-tape experiment with daytime wearing of higher-capacity diapers in size medium has revealed one failure mode: I had on a medium Lil' Monster yesterday, and had one of those moments of "premature" urgency that hit me now and then, even when it's only been 20 or 30 minutes, wherein I feel like I really have to go, have a strong stream for a second, and then it peters out to nothing. My "equipment" was pointed upward, and after opening the gates, I paid no further attention to the goings-on, until maybe an hour later, when I stood up and noted that my shirt and the top of my shorts were damp. Whereas a size large would have covered up to or past my belly button, a medium doesn't rise as high on me, which is great from a bulk reduction standpoint, but, apparently the odds of a "boil-over" go up considerably when you're sitting in a shallower pot. 

[Little Sherri]

We've added a new euphemism for the "d" word to our vernacular: "undies". Background - my wife was shopping at Costco and she saw some athletic pants on sale of the type I like to wear around the house, once shorts weather is behind us. She bought me a couple of pairs, and brought them up while I was getting ready for bed, asking me if I would try them on. I had a Play Dayz cloth-backed diaper on that I'd been in from just before dinner, that I was going to sleep in because it still had a decent amount of capacity left, under a pair of shorts, so I stripped off the shorts and dutifully pulled the new pants on, per her request. She looked me up and down and said "You probably could fit in a medium, but I didn't know how well that would have worked over.... the undies." Given that those pants were clearly intended to be day wear, and that she was giving consideration to how they would look over a diaper, I took this to be another tacit acknowledgement that, yes, I would in all probability have one on while wearing the pants. I am curious - and maybe someday I'll work up the courage to ask - as to when she figured out that I wear diapers all the time, not just at night. 

I have the house to myself for a rare afternoon, my wife having taken the kids to see her parents, although I'm not sure their plans for a socially-distanced lunch are going to work out, given the thunderstorms that are scudding by between short moments of sunshine. I'm taking advantage of it to get some chores done while wearing what is probably my favourite around-the-house outfit, a t-shirt and a diaper. I did a restock of my upstairs diaper supplies, and noted that I'm on my second-to-last bag of Prevail 360's, which used to be my daytime underwear of choice, back when I left the house for work two or three days a week. I have to give some thought as to if I'm going to reorder them... they're not a bad diaper, they feel like what I imagine Pampers Cruisers would feel like if they made them in an adult size. They're quiet, they conceal well under clothes, and they rarely betray me as long as I'm not a complete cowboy with respect to managing their capacity. They're also pretty cheap, compared with true ABDL plastic diapers. But, I've figured out over the last few months that I prefer the feel of a plastic diaper, and plastic diapers at this price point are pretty grim, as far as I've seen. I guess the question comes down to which will win out, common sense or preference? As I pose that question, I'm sitting here my office in a big plastic diaper... common sense tends to lose out to preference around here, evidently. 

[Josh42]

An "unexpected pitfall" of playing around with 24/7 is I started to have real accidents like I was a bedwetter.  

[Little Sherri]

From the "Why is it always Mondays" file... I've been using up some of the Play Dayz I've had in stock for a couple of years, in an effort to reduce the breadth of my diaper inventory, and I had forgotten one particular characteristic of these diapers - the tendency for the stuffing to migrate slowly to the lower rear quadrant. I had had that one on since yesterday early in the evening, and went on a fairly long walk in it at sunset last night, which exacerbated the migration, but, although a lot of it had moved, most of the stuffing was still dry, even this morning, so I thought I could maybe get by until noon or so in the same diaper. 

To reduce the pendulous appearance of my derriere, I threw a onesie on over it, and then sat down in my office to dig into some emails, dribbling lightly as I went along. Well, at some point, I felt a creeping dampness on the inside of my thighs, and a quick feel confirmed my suspicion; although the stuffing was still probably 50% dry, it was concentrated underneath me  - indeed, it felt like I was sitting on a football - and the front of the diaper was basically serving as a tarp and a sluice. Some of the liquid had therefore made its way past the edges of the diaper and into the onesie, and then had wicked into my shorts from there. So, onesie and shorts into the wash, diaper into the trash, and I'm in a Prevail 360 because I plan to run later so I don't want to put on a diaper that will take me until 8 or 9 PM to properly annihilate. 

But this occurrence has provided yet another rational for rationalizing my diaper stock - when you have too many variables, it becomes hard remember the "performance characteristics" of every model under every condition. It's like being a pilot and flying 15 different planes. That may be a slight exaggeration, but you get my point. At least it happened at home!

Maybe it's the heat getting to me, but I am considering trying to run in this Prevail this afternoon. I've been lamenting here for ages that I can't find a diaper to run in, but, in reviewing my records, I think that the last time I tried to accomplish a decent 4 or 5 mile run while padded, I was wearing a GoodNites pull-up that was overburdened from the get-go, designed as it was for someone 50 lbs lighter than I am. I am going to apply cream like it's axle grease, and if I start getting any negative feedback, I will abort the experiment. I don't know why this is so important to me - the first thing I do after a run is take a shower, anyway, so whatever I'm wearing will be at the end of the line at that point. And I pretty much don't experience urinary urgency once I get into heavy exertion of any sort. But, somehow, being able to run in a diaper would be a milestone for me - it would mean that I can basically stop using my boxer shorts completely, at least until the gyms are allowed to open back up, when I can reconsider my stance on diapered martial arts. It looks like we might not be allowed to make physical contact with anyone, anyway, once the gym reopens, so maybe diapers on the mats could be a possibility... although I do miss being able to punch someone once in a while. It really helps me manage my stress. 

[Little Sherri]

Update: apparently you can run 5 miles in a Prevail 360 Breezer. And then mow the lawn. I have to say that this is a game changer. Maybe. I haven't really gained that much functionality... other than maybe going out and mowing the lawn, pretty much the only thing I do after a run is take a shower, at which point whatever diaper I'm wearing goes to the great beyond, anyway. But this puts me in a place where I really don't need to own any boxers. For some reason, that seems like a paradigm shift, although, really, committing to 24/7, and telling my wife I wear diapers, were much bigger steps. Part of me wants to take the dog for a walk, and toss my remaining underwear into the trash bin at the park. But for the fact that gyms might someday reopen, I might just go do that right now. 

I slathered on the diaper cream like I was greasing a tractor, and I started out in an only-moderately-wet Prevail, because I didn't want entrained weight to cause it to saw at my nether regions as it swung to and fro, but when I was done, it felt so "okay", that I carried on, seeking out activities I could accomplish prior to a shower, without making contact with furniture, so I settled on the lawn care regimen. I haven't inspected the area yet, but I feel nothing, no indication of chaffing or irritation.The Velcro tabs held up like champs, but that was never really my worry - for a cheap diaper, Prevails have Rolls Royce fasteners. I was more concerned that the stretchy wings might part ways with the diaper where they meet at the lower rear corners, and there was a bit of tearing there, but nearly nothing, and not enough to make me worry about what might eventually happen. I've put a staple through that junction point before, in preparation for wearing one on a hike, and that worked very well - I had a Pampers in it on that occasion to increase the capacity, and by the time I took it off, it had a pretty good heft to it, and the fasteners and the wing junctions held up fine. And it didn't leak. 

So, where I thought I might eliminate the Prevails from my inventory, because of my preference for plastic diapers, and my newfound comfort in wearing heftier diapers during the day, now, I suspect I might get another case when this one is done, assuming a couple of more tests confirm that its a running diaper. I should contact their marketing department... "I ran a marathon with complete confidence... thanks Prevail!" Actually, the porta-potties long the route of the last marathon I ran were awful. Wearing a diaper could probably be popular even among people who normally don't. 

[oznl]

I can’t find a Prevail “360 Breezer” here in Australia although I can find a “Prevail Breezer”.  There come in packs of 18 with an advertised 2330ml absorbency but have 4 tapes.  I was wondering if they are the same animal.  At A$18 per packet of 18, they are pretty cheap (AUD and CAD are within 5% of each other so fairly comparable).  Any idea if they might be the same thing?

https://store.independenceaustralia.com/prevail-brief-breezers-large-waist-113-145cm-2330ml-15340555

Naturally, they are not in stock in my local state but who knows…  One day they might be…

 

I currently don't have a "gym" diaper.  Although gyms are open, it's not like I can practically go anyway.  You have to book a session (very limited numbers), the gym has to be staffed during that session and the toilets/showers/change facilities are closed.  Yeah, like that would work...

I'm down to my 5km daily and maybe some push-ups in the morning which is really doing nothing more than reminding me about muscle wastage.

[Little Sherri]

I think those might be close to the same thing, @oznl... it's hard to tell. The drawing of the nappy on the front of the packaging looks a bit different; the ones I buy have two fasteners on each side, but they aren't separate "tabs" like what's depicted on the package. Rather, the side "wings" have a Velcro-like fastener at the top and bottom of the leading edge, which can be landed anywhere on the front of the nappy. 

Here's a link showing what I buy:

https://www.healthwick.ca/prevail-breezers-360-ultimate-absorbency-briefs/

The pricing of yours is very similar to what I pay when I buy them by the case - a case contains six packages of 16 diapers, for a total of 96, and I paid about $90 for it. There's an outlet here that allows for picking up orders, so I don't have to pay for shipping. 

The capacity rating seems very similar. I don't push these to their limits, generally, because I usually wear them when I'm away from the house, but then again, I also haven't integrated plastic pants into my repertoire like you have, so you may find they go further for you. I find them decently reliable, well constructed, and they're whisper quiet, when that's a concern.  

[Little Sherri]

I'm going to copy this over, in my ongoing effort to collate most of my thoughts on this into one location. It's an answer I posted to a question along the lines of  "When was the last time you were told to use your diapers by your partner or your parent?"

************

I haven't really ever been told to use my diaper by anyone, probably since I was a kid. There were a couple of times that I vaguely recall on long drives where I said I really had to pee, and my mom or dad said that if I didn't think I could wait until the next time we had to stop, I should just use my diaper (I wore diapers in the car on cross-country drives and such, anytime it was likely I might end up falling asleep - bedwetting was the core issue). But that wasn't common - usually if I said I had to use the washroom, even if I had a diaper on, they'd let me. 

Probably the most recent occasion where I was sort of told to "use my diaper" was when my wife and I were both vying to get into our ensuite washroom after getting back from a social event, and she pointed to the diaper I was wearing, and said "I'm first - clearly, you can wait." 

There was one occasion when I was standing in our washroom, struggling to repair a torn tab on a diaper I was wearing using packing tape, and trying to tear it off with one hand, when she said "You look like you need a hand." Normally she pretty much ignores my diapers, usually referring to them only if absolutely necessary, and calling them "undies", or just "those", so I welcomed her offer, and walked over to her, expecting her to help me tear off the piece of tape I needed. Instead, she took the role of tape from me, said something like "You're making this complicated", and then she simply ran tape across the entire front of my diaper, from one side to the other. I had been intending to craft a new tab with a folded edge, so I could open the diaper if I needed to, but she eliminated that consideration - taking the diaper off again would have required ripping it apart. I said something like "Well I guess I'm stuck in this now", and she said either "Yup!" or "I guess you are." Which, to be honest, I kind of enjoyed. One aspect of my childhood diaper wearing experience that I haven't been able to replicate convincingly is the absence of control that I felt when I was told that I had to wear a diaper for one occasion or another, or when, even though it was unspoken, I knew that I "had" to wear a diaper to bed - I had no choice in the matter, not wearing one meant about a 90% chance of flooding the bedding. 

Now, I've put myself back in diapers - nobody is telling me that I have to wear them (although, after about 15 months, at least at night, it would be extremely unwise of me not to wear one). I think that's part of why I enjoyed taking trips (back when one could travel) where I didn't have anything BUT diapers with me for underwear - it sort of felt, when I got up in the morning, I HAD to put a diaper on. Similarly, I am compelled to part ways with my big boy boxers; I've moved them into the basement, relegating them to athletic wear, and now that I've successfully gone for a decent run in a diaper, I'm trying to make them even less accessible. Maybe I'll plaster them into a wall. 

So, if my wife ever wanted to take a leading role on this front (extremely unlikely), and occasionally tape or otherwise lock or compel me to stay in a diaper, I think I would welcome it, at least sometimes, when I was in the mood for it. 

[Little Sherri]

I've copied and pasted this over from @oznl's wonderfully entertaining and informative thread, once again in an effort to collate my thoughts and experiences in one place. The quoted section directly below is his, and below that, my thoughts on it. I hope I'm not violating any established etiquette that I'm unaware of,  in doing this. 

 

 It seems the prescience alone of having to LEAVE my nappies was contaminating my comfort of being in them.  Compounding this, whilst OUT of them, all I could do was count the hours before I would be getting back IN to them again.

I definitely concur with this. I wore nappies to bed pretty much every night for a good stretch prior to going 24/7 - close to a year - and the best days for me then were the rare ones where my family other than I, had to go somewhere early in the morning, or when I had the house to myself, or when I was travelling for work and maybe had a morning of head-down office work planned, prior to a meeting or whatever. All of these resulted in my being able to go to bed in a nappy, and wake up without facing the immediate prospect of taking it off, which always made me feel "worse", basically. 

It got to the point where it was, in some ways, pulling me away from my family... I came to look forward to their absence, just so that I could indulge, and I found reasons, whenever I could, to join them a couple of days later on vacations, etc, just so I could have 24 or 48 hours of relief. I started my journal here primarily to discuss preparations for having the house to myself for a few weeks last summer - my intention was to spend that time 24/7. In that particular example, my prolonged sabbatical from them wasn't premeditated entirely to get me some diaper time - they were going to spend 6 weeks in Europe, and there was no way I could take that much consecutive time off without possibly risking my the employment that was allowing us to afford the trip in the first place. But, it did cause me to recognize that I was being drawn in a direction that curved away, and not toward, family involvement... and life is short, and in the blink of an eye we'll have the house to ourselves again and sometimes we'll wish we had a sink full of dishes and the laundry machine ran daily and there were more shoes than could possibly be explained on the floor by the front door. 

I realized that if I wore diapers all the time, having the house to myself might still have its charms on occasion, but it wouldn't be scented with the lullaby relief of nappy cream's intoxicating perfume. And, indeed, I have found this to be the case; I legitimately believe that my wearing diapers has brought us closer together. I don't look for ways to create time away from my family with nearly the same enthusiasm. I also think my wife and I get along better, at least in part because it's hard to muster the starch for a good argument, while clad only in a ridiculous diaper. But that ridiculous diaper often causes me to pause and think, well, she puts up with a lot, and I've gained a lot of ground here... maybe diplomacy is called for. Plus, I know I'm in a better mood, generally. I don't have to think about when this diaper is coming off; there's another one queued up. And I've proven to myself that I can make being in diapers work under pretty much all circumstances, so I have no plans to change course, which has eliminated at least one dark cloud from the horizon, and in these stormy times, that alone makes wearing silly underwear worth the effort. 

[Little Sherri]

****

In other news, I had another of my "Diaper Dreams" last night, dreams in which I'm wearing diapers, or diapers feature prominently. These are not that common for me, but on the other hand, I can't recall every having any before in my life, and now I have maybe one every couple of months, since I went 24/7. I wonder if I had any when I was a kid? I can't remember any, but then again, I don't remember most of my dreams from when I was young. There are only a couple that stand out. Since I was sleeping in diapers, I wonder, was I dreaming in diapers? No idea. 

But back to last night's dream: for some reason, we went to a drugstore with a few of our friends - I think perhaps we were shopping together for a trip we were going to take. The store was really busy - lots of people in the aisles and mulling about. My wife lead me over to a section that had diapers, both in bags, and also, individual diapers, lined up on shelves almost like library books. The ones that weren't bagged were organized by colours - purple, pink, black, dark blue. She pulled a black one down from the shelf, and showed it to me, asking me what I thought, and I was painfully aware of our friends following us around, so I kind of laughed it off and said "Ha ha, that's interesting", and tried to shoot her a "knock it off!" glance. Then, we followed her over to a counter with a bunch of people standing around it, and there was an older gentlemen with a white lab coat on behind it, which I took to be a pharmacist. Our friends and I stood back while she leaned through the people who were standing at the counter, and talked to the pharmacist, and then she turned and gestured to summon me over, so I walked over, standing a bit behind the cluster of people, who were talking to each other in what seemed like another language. The guy behind the counter asked me loudly what kind of diapers I was looking for, and how long I was wearing them. I felt completely cornered, and said something like "What do you mean?", and he said "Well how long do you wear them? All day? How often do you change?" I didn't answer, just turned and walked back to our friends, feeling red-faced, if that's possible in a dream, and said something like "Let's get out of here - it's too busy." So we walked away, and I was leading the group to another part of the store, and while doing that, I became convinced that my diaper was sticking up above the waist of my shorts at the back, but, much like with the situation when my neighbour's daughter walking into in my garage a couple of weeks ago, there was no way I could check, without drawing further attention to the area, so I just marched steadfastly forward, looking for an opportunity to pull away from the group and tuck my shirt in. 

Then I woke up, irritated with my wife, who was sleeping soundly and innocently beside me, for putting me in a situation that my subconscious was entirely responsible for. 

[Little Sherri]

No major news to report this morning, just the continuation of what was, for me, a minor breakthrough - having discovered that I can successfully run in one of my diaper brands, without blowing the diaper apart, or tearing myself to shreds, I am into my second week of "only" wearing diapers. Background: I've been 24/7 for about 16 months, but I had been reverting to putting on big-boy underwear for two occasions, those being when I went to the gym, and, when I went for a run. The gyms have been closed here since March, but, on average, twice a week for an hour, I doffed my beloved nappies and resignedly pulled on boxers, to try and stave off mortality on the treadmill, while watching Game of Thrones or whatever. But since my "discovery", which, I have to admit, was lurking under my nose practically since I started this experiment, other than in the shower, I have not been out of a diaper, and it feels fantastic. I would have discarded my boxer inventory completely, but for the probability that gyms will be allowed to open up again in August, at which point I can resume my martial arts training and instructing. However, in deference to the demands of our new ruler, King Corona, training, when it resumes, will look little like it did in the before-times; we won't be able to make physical contact with anyone, and instead will primarily be pantomiming techniques using dummies, or invisible adversaries.

SO, that does raise the prospect that I could wear diapers at the gym. I've done it before, but at the time I found it very distracting - I was constantly fretting about if my infantile underclothes would reveal themselves somehow, a not-inconceivable turn of events: I have had my gi pants pulled 1/4 of the way down while being thrown before. When that results in a brief glimpse of some dark grey cotton boxers, nobody blinks, but, even the antiseptic white of a sober medical-grade diaper would probably command raised eyebrows, let alone purple and blue cartoon characters. Maybe I'll rent a storage locker and put all my "adult" underclothes there, thus allowing me the psychological freedom of not having anything in the house except diapers, unless I want to go for a drive, and even then, presumably I'd be driving to get my underwear, with a diaper on.

[oznl]

I'm not built for running (joint issues) and whilst the gyms are technically open, there are so many controls around accessing (and the bathrooms are out-of-bounds) that I haven't bothered even trying.  A brisk 5km walk 4 x per week and some morning push-ups (not many) are about it.  All of those can be done in whatever nappy I happen to be in.  It's looking like the office will be closed until next year (assuming I make it that far) and muscle mass is a distant memory.

I actually don't like exercise:  I have to force myself to do it.

Have you considered some of the Gary Activewear PUL stuff?  I've got a couple of pairs of the navy blue ones.  They look a heck of a lot like underwear and would cover things up nicely, at least withstanding a casual glance in the heat of battle.

Another route (compatible with your climate) might be a soberly coloured "onesie".  I've seen black ones.  They're just too hot here and beloved would go ballistic if I tried to add them to household laundry.

I've no idea what's happened to my underwear which will be awkward at the next Dr appointment - will need to go hunting for a pair soon.

 

[Little Sherri]

Hi, @oznl - that sounds like a great  idea -  I think I'm going to investigate it. Sometimes I forget about the full implications of the seismic shift that occurred when I "opened up" to my spouse; I can now order things online, whereas in the "before times", I was limited to products I could pay cash for and pick up in person. 

Regarding the sizing of Gary Activewear PUL products, given that a lot of this stuff isn't returnable once you've bought it, I want to make sure that I get it right. I know I'm putting you on the spot, because you're not a tailor, but, here goes - I'm generally a size 36 in most shorts or pants;  for nappies, I always land somewhere in the gulf between medium and large. My waist is a medium but my legs are like tree trunks and I need a size large to get the bottom tapes to reach the landing zone on most brands. Based on your experience, what size do you think I should target? 

Actually, @oznl, I retract my question - I see they have a pretty thorough sizing guide on their site. Now I have to find out if they have a distributor in Canada; their "find a dealer" map only includes the US. Otherwise I can order via one of the US options. I shall report back.