24/7 startups, and unexpected pitfalls?

[Little Sherri]

My uncle-in-law has returned from whence he came, and normalcy is returning to our household. Sort of. I have a bone to pick with my wife, but it's one of those things where I'm not sure if there is any advantage to drawing attention to it, but at the same time, I am compelled to want to address it. There are tracts within this file that have to be redacted, but I'll do my best to illustrate the situation... basically, over the course of her uncle's stay, she decided a couple of times to start openly discussing my medical history aloud in front of him. Not that there is much of great public interest in that topic, but, it's something that I prefer to keep between me and, you know, people that I choose to discuss it with. It's not something I like other people to rummage through in front of me. 

She basically had me cornered, because I can't draw a weapon and start a firefight while someone from her extended family is eating an apple one chair over from me. So, I just had to absorb incoming fire, or get up and leave, but even doing that could be interpreted by him as essentially a comment on what was being said or implied, so I had to pretend it was all very funny, friendly piss-taking, and not encroachment on contested ground, or, verging on an act of war. 

Basically, she started musing aloud that I was keeping medical facts from her, things she should know about in case one day I keel over and the paramedics need to immediately deduce if what has felled me is related to my plastic underpants. That last bit was left unspoken, but, it was what she was reaching for, leaving me, of course, defenseless, other than to say generic things like "There's nothing you don't know that would be of any importance in the unlikely circumstances you're describing." 

Meanwhile, I was nearly in flight-or-fight mode internally, while externally I was, you know, idly sipping at my tea while browsing through the paper, because I did not know if the next sentence was going to be along the lines of "He's been running around in diapers for close to four years, and has never really given me a good explanation for why." On top of that, she also dropped some more hilarious one-liners that probably went over most people's heads, but that found their marks with me, things like him asking if anyone needs to go to the washroom before we left a sports arena, to which she responded "Everyone probably should, well, except for Mr. Iron Bladder over here, he never needs to." 

Consider as well that during some of these sniper attacks on my position, my younger daughter was there, in all her teenaged wisdom, leaving me to also consider whether she was oblivious and wrapped up in her social media, or if she'd decide at some unknown point to chime in as well, in the belief that what was subtext had in fact become declassified information, so carelessly was it being lobbed around. "Yeah, dad, why do you wear diapers?", or "Ha ha, yeah, dad never needs to use the bathroom because he can pee anytime he wants to." 

I am reminded again of something a friend of mine said: "When you play silly games, you get silly prizes." Indeed. 

SO, dear reader, part of me wants to just bury my head in the sand and wait for my f*cking prom (movie reference there), and part of me, now that my house is once again mine, and the kids are both at school, wants to march into the kitchen and say something along the lines of "What the f*ck was that all about!?!"  (While wearing, of course, a dead serious scowl, and, a ridiculous diaper...) 

Because although my wife doesn't wear weird secret underpants, as with most people, there are all kinds of topics that I'm sure she'd rather I not disinter and eviscerate in front of her extended family, or mine, and I would NEVER do that to her. I'm looking at travelling with her to a significant family event this summer... can I do that, now? Can I trust her? Can I mingle with relatives and sip a glass of wine and watch her from the corner of my eye across the room as she laughs with another group of people I've known my whole life, and not wonder if she's engaging in sabotage? 

Sigh. 

[tuffy]

I think you need to have a calm, frank discussion with your wife about your need for diapers.

Be completely open with her and explain all the confusing feelings that attract you to diapers despite the obvious downsides. If you don't think you can trust her with a complete core dump, you should at least tell her as much has you think she can handle.

Once you've dealt with the elephant, you can take move on to take the bull by the horns. Tell her about how uncomfortable the discussion with her uncle made you feel. Impress on her your desire to minimize who else knows and how much they know. Clearly, your children (for example) don't need to know all the gory details and are fine with what they know now. Anyone else, should be a case by case basis and only be given the minimal amount necessary for the given situation, including medical personnel.

[jeremy12312]

20 hours ago, Little Sherri said:

and say something along the lines of "What the f*ck was that all about!?!"

Not sure if joking or serious. 

But. 

Let me relate a tale about discussing diapers with a formerly reluctant spouse. If she thinks she just plying you in good fun, with no malice intended, it’s probably best to roll with the punches. 

Because if she’s having fun with the concept of you being diapered, and you get upset with that (in essence, taking her fun part away), it could whipsaw on ya and she could sour on the entire concept for an undetermined period of time. 

 

[oznl]

20 hours ago, Little Sherri said:

Basically, she started musing aloud that I was keeping medical facts from her, things she should know about in case one day I keel over and the paramedics need to immediately deduce if what has felled me is related to my plastic underpants. That last bit was left unspoken

The view I get from this side of the planet is that your situation is complicated by the fact that your wife, in the absence of any supplied information, has presumably drawn her own, private-and-ineffable conclusions as to why you do what you do.  It is therefore difficult to evaluate how reasonable her strategies may seem to her.

But,  and there was always going to be a but,  I don’t believe it’s EVER appropriate to be discussing those kind of personal neo-medical details with third parties without a trailer-load-sized helping of consent.   Furthermore, I consider that doing so “in front of the children” so to speak, is something of an aggravating factor.  It sends a misleading signal about what should be a bullet-proof spousal pact of trust and discretion and as you have already identified, suggests to them that some information is in the public domain when it absolutely is not.

Proceeding directly to confrontation would be unlikely to help, even notwithstanding the asymmetry in credibility you’d face arguing your case from behind a giant wet diaper featuring a cartoon elephant.  Should the situation escalate instead of de-escalate, your only real weapon is the nuclear option of return fire which is a path to mutually-assured-social-destruction.

I suppose a relatively neutral path forward would be to (in private) query her about the misgivings she has expressed with respect to being on the outside of “medical facts”, whatever those may be.  It's a legitimate question.

Irrespective of whether or not the topic of diapers arises, somewhere in there I’d expect a Segway to open allowing you to communicate the entirely reasonable request that your “medical facts” are NOT something that can be shared with another over an apple in the way of weather and should, as far as possible, remain deeply and inviolably private.

17 hours ago, tuffy said:

I think you need to have a calm, frank discussion with your wife about your need for diapers.

If the diaper thing is hauled out then you may wish to consider the advice above.  The disturbance in the force may just be spinning off too many paradoxes ?

You're the only one who can make the call about how far down this road to go but the element of psychological dependency would have to co-star with any physical factors.

 

[Little Sherri]

On 3/28/2023 at 8:32 AM, jeremy12312 said:

If she thinks she just plying you in good fun, with no malice intended, it’s probably best to roll with the punches. 

Because if she’s having fun with the concept of you being diapered, and you get upset with that (in essence, taking her fun part away), it could whipsaw on ya and she could sour on the entire concept for an undetermined period of time. 

I'm definitely cognizant of the fact that I'm deserving of some piss-taking in regards to my preference for wearing plastic underpants all the time, and I've never resented her one-liners or gentle potshots on the topic - indeed, I kind of enjoy them, because it's what I would consider to be "normal" spousal behaviour, and normalizing "this" has kind of become my life's mission. But cornering me in front of someone else and opening fire is completely different. If she wants to have this discussion, there are lots of opportunities to have it when it's just her and I. 

On 3/27/2023 at 2:32 PM, tuffy said:

I think you need to have a calm, frank discussion with your wife about your need for diapers.

Be completely open with her and explain all the confusing feelings that attract you to diapers despite the obvious downsides. If you don't think you can trust her with a complete core dump, you should at least tell her as much has you think she can handle.

This is a tough one for me. I think I've more or less put all my cards on the table, but, I haven't come out and expressly said "Yeah, I think having to wear diapers to bed as an older kid, and losing my dad at an early age and then acquiring an alcoholic, emotionally (and occasionally physically) abusive stepfather within about 18 months of that has left me emotionally damaged, so I'm contending with that by wearing absurd and comforting underpants, rather than taking pharmaceuticals, and oh by the way, as a side-effect of what I've done, I'm wetting the bed for real sometimes, so now I actually do need to wear something at night, whereas when I started all of this, I was only pretending that was the case, because I could not articulate the above, so instead I reached for the most conventional, physiological explanation I could think of, in order to end the extremely stressful subterfuge I was engaging in, before I told you about this. My plastic underpants had me coveting time away from my family, which I felt was coming between us, and now I no longer have to do that, or so I THOUGHT, before your less-than-subtle brinksmanship in front of your uncle." 

On 3/28/2023 at 8:37 AM, oznl said:

You're the only one who can make the call about how far down this road to go but the element of psychological dependency would have to co-star with any physical factors.

This is something I have to weigh out. My wife is very vanilla and conventional and even judgmental when it comes to psychosocial "aliments" , which is hilarious in its own right, because you could write a book about the bombed lunar surface of her inner mindscape, replete with craters that are miles deep from ancient planetary bombardments. Her parents have issues, and she is an only child. At least I had siblings I could commiserate with. 

 

On 3/28/2023 at 8:37 AM, oznl said:

The view I get from this side of the planet is that your situation is complicated by the fact that your wife, in the absence of any supplied information, has presumably drawn her own, private-and-ineffable conclusions as to why you do what you do.  It is therefore difficult to evaluate how reasonable her strategies may seem to her.

This is well put. 

 

On 3/28/2023 at 8:37 AM, oznl said:

I suppose a relatively neutral path forward would be to (in private) query her about the misgivings she has expressed with respect to being on the outside of “medical facts”, whatever those may be.  It's a legitimate question.

Irrespective of whether or not the topic of diapers arises, somewhere in there I’d expect a Segway to open allowing you to communicate the entirely reasonable request that your “medical facts” are NOT something that can be shared with another over an apple in the way of weather and should, as far as possible, remain deeply and inviolably private.

These two considerations are inexorably intertwined... I thought that we were on the same page when it came to publicly rummaging through each other's medical laundry. It probably would be the most reasonable approach to, as you say, calmy query her about her misgivings and then try to allay them, but, I now feel like anything I say could be used against me in a court of law, that I'd perhaps be providing the opposing camp with more ammunition. Sigh. 

[Little Sherri]

I was so busy cogitating on the above that I've once again skated right past my "diaper-versary"; as of two days ago, I'd been 24/7 for 4 years. Wow.

Well, even though I didn't realize that it was "the big day", I did manage to wear a big diaper - a Rearz Mermaids Tale. I even went for a hike in it. I ended up changing it at late in the afternoon, after having put it on at bedtime the night before, so call that ~17 hours in the saddle. Pretty impressive. Today, I'm testing out one of their new "Mega" Barnyards. Pretty comfy so far, and it has not replicated my experience with the last Barnyard I wore, where it mysteriously leaked on both sides at the front, when it was probably at the 50% point. That was like a 3-year-old diaper, though, so maybe a bead of adhesive had decided to retire. So far, this Barnyard is comfortable, crinkly and slightly bulky, but otherwise doesn't seem particularly "Mega" - we'll pee and we'll see. I expect to get nowhere near its stated 8600 ml capacity, as I'm going out for pints with buddies tonight and won't do that in a diaper I'll have had on for 12 hours at that point. Also, I'd have to sit in a plastic tub to get that close its limits. If it holds 3000 ml, I'll be impressed. ISO ratings are like the top speed numbers in car magazines... interesting but largely unattainable in public. 

I have to jump into a meeting shortly so I may write more later, although it being month-end, I may be tied up with work. A quick synopsis of events since I lost posted would include my wife being overtly and almost irritatingly nice about everything since "The Incident" with her uncle. I now have like 7 bottles of baby powder and 5 tubs of diaper cream. Also, I'm pretty sure that a very good friend of mine knows that I wear diapers, and that he doesn't care. He had a plumbing explosion at his house involving a water softener, and called me for backup while I was out and about, wearing a Rearz Essential under jeans and a sweatshirt, but, no onesie, because I'd thought I was just going to be buying dog food, not visiting. Or crouching and working on plumbing behind a water softener in a cramped furnace room in a basement. 

Long story short, I went over there, I helped, I ended up crouched down low behind the softener in a way that had my back-end facing into a cavity in the wall, essentially, so I didn't have much concern about anything showing up back there, but then my buddy jumped up and circled behind me with a flashlight so that I could get a better view of what I was doing. My hands were tied up on plumbing bits and I just could not react fast enough, and my standing up would have meant starting again, so I said a swear word under my breath and continued with the fix. After we were done, he said "Thanks, man, I definitely owe you a beer for that!", and then he headed over to his bar area to get the aforementioned beer.

I ducked into the bathroom that's next to his furnace room in the basement, and before making any clothing adjustments, I bent over at the waist and looked at the mirror... Yup. A line of (mercifully) white plastic appeared above my jeans and below my shirt. My face reddened, I questions my life choices (not for the first time), and then I gave myself a moment to get over it, I tucked in my shirt, cinched up my belt, cleared my throat, washed my hands, and joined my buddy at his bar, where he slid over a frosty pint of stout, and then we replayed the events, solved the world's problems, had another beer, and generally shot the shit as we always do, before I took my leave. I'm due to meet up with him and some other guys tonight, so apparently he hasn't decided to cut ties as of yet.  

I guess the moral of the story is a version of the admonition to always wear clean underwear, because you never know if you're going to end up in an accident. "Always, always wear a onesie." 

[Little Sherri]

I'm back with a quick update - the Mega Barnyards are indeed at least somewhat improved, in my estimation. I did not get a chance to wear that one long enough to fully test it, but I was understandably curious as to what it had left to offer, when the time came to get ready to go out with my buddies. I wasn't going to leave the house in a bulky, damp diaper - it could have necessitated a change in a pub bathroom, or worse. But I had some puttering around to do before leaving, so I decided to conduct an experiment of sorts... I took the diaper of, and then poured 3 cups of warm water into the back of it, where the stuffing was still dry. I let it sit for a minute, then put the diaper back on, and proceeded to test how close it was to its limits via engaging in normal activities. I carried laundry down the stairs and into the laundry room. I carried stuff from the dryer back up. I emptied garbage cans and refilled soap dispensers and put away my portion of the laundry, and I sat down on a wooden chair with a towel on it and read the paper for a few minutes. I waddled out to the garage with the garbage I'd collected (I put pants on for that part). 

I experienced no press-out leaks, the tabs held like they were bolted on, and, I concluded that, were it not for the bulk of the thing, and, had I not dumped 750 ml of liquid into the back of it, I might have been able to wear it out that night, at least technically, even if I wouldn't actually have done that, because I would probably have gotten tired at some point of being very wet for several hours. I did not weigh the diaper, but "by the seat of my pants", the amount that I put into it via my kidneys, plus the cups of water, made it weigh about as much as any maxed-out diaper I've ever been in. I don't know that it could go back-to-back with an Elite Hybrid or a Mermaids Tale, but it weighed as much or more than a maxed-out MegaMax usually would, and it did not fail me. Apparently there is something to their "Megaing" program at Rearz. I had my doubts, because in my hand, when I unpacked it, the diaper felt to be about the same weight as they always did, and less bulky than, say, a Critter Caboose, but apparently capacity was added without much bulk. 

[Little Sherri]

A quick note today... I was in my local pharmacy and I had to wait for a prescription to be filled for my wife, so I did what I usually do, and wandered the store. One thing I noted: they have an aisle labelled "Diapers & Baby", and the lefthand side of it starts at newborn and progresses up through size 6 toddler diapers, and then one size 7 offering (Swaddlers), and then the Easy-Ups and other "training pants" progress to Goodnites and other "bedtime underwear", culminating in their 125 lb+ XL product, which is where things used to end. However, a few months ago, they moved the adult incontinence products from an adjacent aisle over to this aisle, so on the next shelf over, are the Depends pull-ups and tabbed diapers, and Tena, and some of the private label stuff. 

I was wondering if at some point they would change the sign hanging above the entrance to the aisle from "Diapers & Baby" to something else, but instead, what they've done is to install a smoked glass divider about a foot deep, between the last column of pull-ups, and the first column of adult diapers, I guess creating a psychological end point for the baby/toddler/kid/adolescent products, so as not to group the "briefs" with the "diapers" and "training pants." 

I am reminded personally, on occasion, that some people do not like pull-ups being conflated with diapers, because I've made the mistake of saying "Does (redacted) need more diapers?" in response to "Does anyone need anything from the Costco/Supermarket/Walmart?", which invariably elicits "DAD! PULL-UPS, not DIAPERS!" So it would appear that the floor planners at the pharmacy have heard something along these lines as well. 

[Little Sherri]

I wore a MegaMax for a good part of yesterday; great diaper. I'm burning through one of the Rearz Selects that I still have in my inventory, the single-tape vintage Pampers clones. They're actually not bad, really - kind of a light-to-medium duty diaper. They work well for me around the office, where it's not a catastrophe if I suffer a leak. As much as single tapes (or tabs) harken back to my youth, I can see the practical advantages of two-tab diapers on the adult body. The Selects try to compensate for that by making the single tab essentially the width of two tabs, but that still denies you the ability to separately tune the leg and waist fits. 

I do not have a lot of experience with three-tab diapers - does anybody out there have a preference for those? The only ones I've used are the Depends with tabs, and I tended to just use the top two tapes, and fold the lowest one back, because otherwise they fit like white plastic boxer shorts, and the dimensions of my thighs made them tend to ride up anyway. Those Depends are useless to me - I think I'd need 8 of them a day, and still wouldn't have the confidence to leave the house. It says something that the addition of a size 6 or 7 children's diaper as a stuffer basically triples their capacity. 

On that topic, sometime when I'm bored and feeling scientific, I want to take one of those Depend man pull-ups, and a Pampers size 7, and compare their absorbency - in my hand, they feel like they're almost exactly the same size and weight. My money is on the Pampers. 

[jeremy12312]

Someone posted a video on one of the Reddit groups about a SE Asian diaper maker with a crossed-over taping technique that I've fallen in love with, which kind of turns a four-taper into a two-tape since the tapes converge on the same point.

Basically, the bottom tape gets angled up so that it is practically fastening at the waist, and the top tape gets angled down to cross over it.  Single point of fastening, like a baby diaper, but it's putting the force for the waist and legs in the vector direction that gravity pulls it down.  With the bottom tape touching near the waist, as the diaper gets heavier and pulls down, the waist pulls in tighter.  Which is the opposite of my experience, where the waist gets more slack over time, especially in bed overnight.  I now do a whole side at once, top and bottom.

This method is so effective, it pretty much makes it impossible to slide a diaper down for incidental toilet usage without releasing the tapes, if you're used to doing that...

[Little Sherri]

On 4/6/2023 at 2:47 PM, jeremy12312 said:

Which is the opposite of my experience, where the waist gets more slack over time, especially in bed overnight.

Interesting - maybe I'll play around with this. I hadn't thought to overlap the tabs, but I do agree that the waist does tend to loosen up on me - I often snug it back up partway through the shift. I'm not one to slide the diaper down if I need to go #2, I usually open up one side, and let the other side slide down my leg, and then put it back on by reversing the technique. It's usually only an issue first thing in the morning and before I go to bed - most of the time I don't need to use the potty during the day, unless something I ate has disagreed with me.

[Little Sherri]

We had a house full of people for Easter. Since I was operating at my home base and had essentially unlimited opportunities for changes, I wore a Rearz InControl Active Air. I was up, down, back, forth, in, out, serving drinks, food, I was tech support for the kids watching endless YouTube videos on TV, and the elderly who wanted CNN on another TV. We had lamb and turkey, red and white wine, beer, lemonade, endless finger foods, two puppies and three languages. My wife and one of her good friends ran the kitchen, and I ran the bar. All in all, it was a success. 

I had low-level anxiety about my beloved cornering me again in front of her parents or any of our friends and asking probing questions about my medical history, but I think she realized that this event needed all hands on deck, and that if she vexed me, I would not have been easily replaced. We tacked towards that possibility at one point when she started quizzing me about my parents' recent doctor's appointment, in front of her parents, but I shut that down right away, and afterwards, everything progressed smoothly. 

I was grateful to be able to put on an Inspire+ and crinkle into bed, lightly inebriated, at the end of the evening, however I fell into a strange and fitful sleep, perhaps precipitated by an ill-advised serving of a dessert that contained espresso. I had all kinds of weird dreams that I only partly remember, including one involving ghosts which was, intriguingly, not terrifying. I recall feeling that, having confirmed the existence of ghosts, I now needed to think about the implications... it was almost like finding out that a new social media platform exists, that a lot of people you know are on... hmmm... do I need to sign up for it, then? Download the app? How important is that channel of communication? If the dead are hanging around and open to communication, should I reach out to some of the ones I know? Or, rather, knew? 

There were two diaper dreams thrown in there as well. The first, and more memorable of the two, had me washing dishes while wearing an absolutely enormous diaper - this thing was hanging down to me knees, and it wasn't even wet. I was marveling at how big it was, but also questioning the wisdom of having worn it, since it must be visible from space, but in order to go swap it for something more discreet, I had to come out from behind the island and cross a couple of rooms full of people. Since I couldn't do that, I briefly considered taking it off and just stuffing it under the sink and going commando until I could get up to my room, but then I was thinking that my mother-in-law or one of the other people helping us would open the cabinet and be confronted with a balled up diaper the size of a comforter. I never really solved my problem, I just woke up.

Sometime later, I had the second one, and it was weirder; now, the event wasn't at my house, it was at my parents' place (I think), or someone's house that they knew - I didn't recognize the space, but my parents seemed to be in charge. Plot points in dreams are allowed to be nonsensical, and this was to be the case - at one point, I think I was my adult self, helping out in some capacity, but then, I entered a room with a bunch of kids in it that I felt I knew (although none had a distinct identity as far as I can recall), and I became one of them... I put down the corkscrew or whatever I had in my hand, and commenced playing Lego. Then, I got called out to the dining room by my mom to say goodnight to some people who were leaving, and suddenly, I was very aware that I had a diaper on. I was kneeling, and my shirt pooled around me, such that none of the kids in the room could see it, but I knew that if I stood up, everyone would see that I had a diaper on, so I decided to just pretend I couldn't hear my mom, but then some of the other kids started saying, "Hey, man, you're mom is calling you..."

Eventually, the room went quiet, and it was very, very obvious that I was going to have to comply with what were becoming pointed requests to make an appearance in the dining room, and I felt dread to the point of almost being in tears, and also regret that I'd let things build to that point, because in the dream I felt that if I'd just jumped up right away, fewer people would have been paying attention, but now, every eye was fixed on the kid who was studiously ignoring his mom, and I knew that I was forcing my mom's hand, and that an escalation of tactics on her part was inevitable. Feeling like a person on an upper floor of a burning building, who has no choice but to jump out the window, I stood up, there was a collective gasp, and then... I woke up. 

[oznl]

15 hours ago, Little Sherri said:

 I never really solved my problem, I just woke up.

This reminded me of a particularly unpleasant class of dream that I experience from time to time.  To my recollection, it’s never been diaper-related but it does feature a kind of Dantean level of hell where I’m stuck in a circular, endless series of attempts to resolve a particular problem that I know at some visceral level, is insoluble.    The problem will vary from dream to dream but what is 100% consistent is that I keep pondering the same dilemma with the same failed strategies in an endless loop until my frustration levels inevitably cause me to wake up.

16 hours ago, Little Sherri said:

Sometime later, I had the second one, and it was weirder; now, the event wasn't at my house, it was at my parents' place (I think), or someone's house that they knew - I didn't recognize the space, but my parents seemed to be in charge. Plot points in dreams are allowed to be nonsensical, and this was to be the case - at one point, I think I was my adult self, helping out in some capacity, but then, I entered a room with a bunch of kids in it that I felt I knew (although none had a distinct identity as far as I can recall), and I became one of them... I put down the corkscrew or whatever I had in my hand, and commenced playing Lego. Then, I got called out to the dining room by my mom to say goodnight to some people who were leaving, and suddenly, I was very aware that I had a diaper on. I was kneeling, and my shirt pooled around me, such that none of the kids in the room could see it, but I knew that if I stood up, everyone would see that I had a diaper on, so I decided to just pretend I couldn't hear my mom, but then some of the other kids started saying, "Hey, man, you're mom is calling you..."

Eventually, the room went quiet, and it was very, very obvious that I was going to have to comply with what were becoming pointed requests to make an appearance in the dining room, and I felt dread to the point of almost being in tears, and also regret that I'd let things build to that point, because in the dream I felt that if I'd just jumped up right away, fewer people would have been paying attention, but now, every eye was fixed on the kid who was studiously ignoring his mom, and I knew that I was forcing my mom's hand, and that an escalation of tactics on her part was inevitable. Feeling like a person on an upper floor of a burning building, who has no choice but to jump out the window, I stood up, there was a collective gasp, and then... I woke up. 

Freudian analysts would have a field day with that one. 

I can’t say that I can EVER recall my own parents being involved in a diaper dream although the “exposure” theme is common enough.  Outside my beloved, I don’t think any recognisable relatives have gotten a Guernsey in my dream world. 

It’s possible that it’s because my relationship with my own parents isn’t that close (mutual choice).  They live at the other end of the country, I haven’t seen them face to face in years and we really only speak on birthdays.

[Little Sherri]

My mother-in-law, who is staying with us, had an appointment this morning and is gone for most of the day, so I'm back to working in my office in just a diaper and a golf shirt for the moment. A decent diaper, too - a Bambino Skooldoodles, rather than something cloth backed and slimmer. It was nice to read the paper and drink my coffee in just a diaper, too - my wife and daughter also left early.

This has incentivized me to finish up the last of the trim work in the kitchen, so that we can put the window coverings up - right now, I have to stay behind the island and avoid walking past a couple of large windows we have, because our kitchen is elevated relative to the grading, and I have a view over to my closest neighbour's yard. Granted, it's still 100 feet from where they are, to us, so if they stepped outside, they'd have to look really hard to see anything, but, it is not my goal to subject them to unnecessary trauma. They're nice people. 

I'm looking forward to the warmer weather, a taste of which has just been on offer, after a most bitter and lingering late winter. It's like someone threw a switch - it was still getting down to zero a week ago, and now, we might see 26 C (~79 F) later this week. Although the long-term forecast still has us possibly seeing zero overnight one more time. I won't be opening the pool quite yet. 

I've been quietly shopping for a couple of older cedars that are still small enough for me to muscle into the ground myself, rather than hiring equipment, albeit with much effort. But if I can plug a couple of sightline holes in the foliage around the pool deck, then in theory, at night, and when the kids aren't around, I might be able to hang out in a diaper if I so choose, at night. I did that a couple of times last year - put a fire on, turned the lights off out there, and was able to just hang around for a while like that, but with the new coverage, I should in theory be able to wander slightly further afield. Now, if only someone made a swim diaper that didn't look like a grandmother's pull-ups. Also, the trees do not deter the mosquitoes. Backyard diaper lounging is definitely a later-in-the-season affaire. 

[Little Sherri]

My beloved has a way of coining a phrase. It was uncharacteristically warm last night for this latitude (for this year, anyway), and that continues today - we are supposed to hit 26 C (~78 F). For a lady whose internal thermostat has lately been causing her to want to sleep with the window open when it's -20 out, the 16 C ambient evening temperature was positively tropical. However, that's not sufficient to trigger the opening of the air conditioning system... I really like when there is at least a couple of weeks where we don't run any climate control equipment, rather than transitioning seamlessly from burning natural gas for heat to burning electrons for refrigeration. Part of this is because I'm cheap, but, I'm also aware of the necessity to manage expectations and force some acclimating to take place... if we run the A/C when it's 16 C outside at night, she's going to expect to see her breath when it's 30 C. By way of comparison, I have a good friend who moved to the Southern US, where it's 26 C in the winter and 40 C with 100% humidity in the summer, and he keeps his house at about 26 C year round... and it's comfortable in there. It's all relative. When the air outside drapes over you like a wet superheated towel, 26 C and 50% humidity is positively fresh. 

I had a bunch of stuff in the laundry, my mother-in-law had gone to bed, and it was warm in our room because the windows had been closed for most of the day, so, I had a Rearz Lil' Splash on... that's it. We were watching a TV show and I was putting laundry away, while she was sitting on her side of the bed patiently explaining to the puppy that blankets were for lounging on, not chewing. Apropos of nothing, she took in the magnificent visage of me in my big printed diaper, pairing socks up, and she said "So, is this going to be The Summer Of The Diaper?" 

That caused me to look up, and also, to cogitate for a moment. By way of the fact that I embarked own "this" path in March, although I just hit 4 years, this will be my 5th summer wearing diapers. On the other hand, I'm way more relaxed now about wearing diapers under summer clothing than I was back then - I used to trend at 50% slim, cloth-backed diapers during the day in the warmer months, whereas now sometimes everything in my diaper pail is plastic at the end of the week. I've even acclimated somewhat to my mother-in-law's presence, and have worn plastic diapers for the last couple of days, whereas  earlier in the week, I was going with high-end cloth-backed products like the Active Air or the Air Supremes for daytime use. 

However, I don't think my wife tracks these things the way I do... so, what made this "The Summer Of The Diaper" in her opinion? 

"Hmmm....", I hummed. "Why do you ask?"

"You've dropped some weight - I thought maybe you were becoming more comfortable."

THAT was an interesting, and, again, thought-provoking response... yes, I've dropped a bit of weight, although I'm still 30+ lbs heavier than I was before the pandemic. However, my primary concerns around how I look in a diaper tend to center on, well, how I look in a DIAPER, not "am I too FAT for this diaper?" I'd liken it to showing up at a picnic naked from the waist down, but wearing a snug shirt. The shirt situation gets lost. 

Also, I'm intrigued that she's paying any attention to my morphology what-so-ever... I really thought that by now, she was utterly blind to it. I have to assume that any interest is purely motivated by mortality concerns... I'm not sure which way that cuts, either - if she's worried that I'm going to die an early death, of if she's worried that I'm not going to. 

All of the above played out behind my eyes while I blinked a couple of times, and, I also mentally noted that I'd been thinking about the sightlines around the pool of late, and planning some landscaping around them. Then I said, "Maybe. Maybe this will be The Summer Of The Diaper." 

[oznl]

8 hours ago, Little Sherri said:

My beloved has a way of coining a phrase. It was uncharacteristically warm last night for this latitude (for this year, anyway), and that continues today - we are supposed to hit 26 C (~78 F). For a lady whose internal thermostat has lately been causing her to want to sleep with the window open when it's -20 out, the 16 C ambient evening temperature was positively tropical. However, that's not sufficient to trigger the opening of the air conditioning system... I really like when there is at least a couple of weeks where we don't run any climate control equipment, rather than transitioning seamlessly from burning natural gas for heat to burning electrons for refrigeration. Part of this is because I'm cheap, but, I'm also aware of the necessity to manage expectations and force some acclimating to take place... if we run the A/C when it's 16 C outside at night, she's going to expect to see her breath when it's 30 C. By way of comparison, I have a good friend who moved to the Southern US, where it's 26 C in the winter and 40 C with 100% humidity in the summer, and he keeps his house at about 26 C year round... and it's comfortable in there. It's all relative. When the air outside drapes over you like a wet superheated towel, 26 C and 50% humidity is positively fresh.

I’ve always been dramatically less inclined to switch on the AC than my beloved but since I switched to work that for much of the time, takes place in an un-airconditioned workshop and warehouse, I spent much of my workday evenings this summer literally shivering in front of the lounge AC at home, waiting for her to go to bed so I could switch the damn thing off and thaw out.  I’m just more used to heat.

The other problem with AC is that I believe it easily becomes addictive.  There is no doubt in my mind that having the availability of and agency over air-conditioning creates a kind of positive feedback loop in some people’s minds.

In the case of my beloved, the more she can deploy refrigerative (or reverse-cycle-refrigerative) technology to defy the climate of the day, the happier she is.  Thusly, left to her own devices we would live in a kind of indoor Bahrain during (what passes for) winter here and in summer, we should be able to refrigerate meat by leaving it on the coffee table.

Currently we are in my happy place where we are using neither heating nor cooling.   Left to my own devices, we’d stay away from heating until at least June but I am not left to my own devices…

One difference to this rule since going back to diapers is summer (well here, really spring, summer and autumn) nights.  A thick, insulating nappy has definitely lowered the bar for me switching on the bedroom AC overnight.

8 hours ago, Little Sherri said:

 yes, I've dropped a bit of weight

Don't worry, I found it 😖  You are welcome to it back.

[Little Sherri]

A couple of quick notes before I jump into a meeting... I was really curious about people who swear by Tena diapers, because my experiences with them have been universally abysmal. However, I've only ever bought them off the shelf at stores, and I realize that their best products may not be sold through that channel, which seems to be aimed primarily at the palliative care crowd. SO, I got my hands on some samples of a well-reviewed Tena, their Stretch Ultra, which, at first glance, seemed to be a more advanced product than the "breathable with tabs" ones available in stores. 

They're kind of a Pampers Cruiser for adults, with stretchy sides and a single, albeit wide, tab per side. I put one on yesterday and went for a 5 km hike, and it was comfortable, didn't chaff, and it was thin enough to wear under anything. I was curious about its range. 

Well, I got my answer relatively quickly... it leaked into my (thankfully, camouflage-print) shorts at the front on the first use. Sigh. Out of an abundance of fairness, I am going to disregard that result, just in case it was an outlier event, and give them another try on my walk this afternoon. Even a great diaper can have a bad day. Somewhere out there is a person who thinks Toyota's are junk. It's not common, but, they're out there. I will advise as to how my next test drive goes. 

Note number two... I blew out a favourite sweatshirt and t-shirt combo when I wore them over an uncovered diaper around the house a few nights ago, and the bottom edge of them somehow got into the front of my diaper while I was sitting in bed watching TV with my wife. All of a sudden, my tummy was wet - it was a truly notable wicking event. Sigh number two. I was reminded of this when I went to put the laundry on this morning and was hit with the smell of stale pee... considering that I wear diapers all the time, it's actually rare for my laundry to smell that way, so I was wondering what was up, and was even going to question my daughter, but then I remembered the late-night malfunction. Plastic pants or a onesie would have prevented this, but I like being in an uncovered diaper - it's my preferred mode of operation. 

[oznl]

9 hours ago, Little Sherri said:

A couple of quick notes before I jump into a meeting... I was really curious about people who swear by Tena diapers, because my experiences with them have been universally abysmal.

I've decided that TENA is an acronym:  Tinkle Everywhere, Never Again...  I'm placing that acronym into to the public domain.  You are welcome.  😆

 

[Little Sherri]

On 4/14/2023 at 8:07 PM, oznl said:

I've decided that TENA is an acronym:  Tinkle Everywhere, Never Again... 

This is hilarious, and unfortunately, does reflect my experience. That said, I test-drove the Stretch Ultra again, and it did perform somewhat better. It's a light-duty product, but this time it at least didn't leak on me. I ran out of trust for it and swapped it out, to find that about 2/3rds of its capacity had been used. That's not bad in terms of "safely useable capacity", but, that still only represents a couple of hours in the saddle. But, as a gym diaper, they might work.

In other "news", I've discovered that my betrothed believes that diapers are expensive. This may be as a result of her working on her taxes, and, my refusal to allow her to look into if we could somehow write them off as a medical expense. I don't collect receipts for them, but, they do hit our credit cards, and while they might be landing as "Unidentified purchase from 123456 Inc." rather than "Gloriously Printed Diapers from Fetishes R' Us", I'm sure she's been able to pick some of them out. The fact that she hasn't asked me about the times I've gone big on one of the Rearz sales, and ordered 5 cases, suggests that she knows what's what, because if I went to the hardware store and dropped $400 on, say, a sexy framing nailer, she'd have texted me before I got it home and asked what I'd bought. 

I learned of this this morning, when I was taping myself into an outlier BetterDry that I had in one of my totes, and a tab ripped off on the lefthand side. I was standing in our bathroom, diapering myself, and uncommonly, the door was part-way open, because there was a fan cord draping through it (it was warm this weekend and my wife needed 50 km/h wind on her at all times while sleeping), and then the dog pushed it open, and there I was, already mostly clad in my baby pants. Just then, the tab pulled off, and, I said something like "Crap!"

Her, sitting on the bed, said "What's up?"

Me: "Nothing - just pulled a tab off my new diaper."

Her: "Well bring it here - those things are expensive. We're fixing it."

I'd never planned to discard it, but, eternally curious and also slightly nervous about her interacting directly with my plastic underpants, I walked over, holding a roll of floral-print duck tape, and stood in front of her. The lower left tab was fastened, the upper left one was absent, leaving the waistband incapable of being snugged up. 

While diaper repair is more my specialty than hers, I think she felt that this situation fell into the "tailoring and seamstress department", so she instructed me to overlap the back over the front and pull them snug, and then she tore off about an 8 inch strip of tape and applied it, then smoothed it with her hand and said "That should hold." 

I said thanks, cheeks slightly red, and then I crinkled away to go get dressed. 

[Little Sherri]

I've had another one of those moments of gratitude that strike me periodically, often when I'm reaching into my diaper drawer right before changing. They go along the lines of... "I have a diaper drawer... wow. I'm wearing a diaper... openly. I'm browsing for my next diaper, and, I have no other underwear options under this roof. I've been in diapers all day, and I'm going to be in them all night. And tomorrow. I was primed for this by a post I made on another thread, about incontinent desires, which made me think about desires in general, and specifically, that I'm, in a sense, living my desire, at least in one small, weird way. 

This came into focus again for me while I was organizing my garage. My office is overtop of the garage, and because of the number of weekend projects I've had going on lately, it's become a dumping ground for tools and materials. It's been a while since I've made beer, and I've wanted to create space for that activity. I had about an hour over lunch with no meetings, and it's once again bitterly cold out, so I had no incentive to putter in the yard, and I thought, why not tidy the garage a bit? 

I'd been working upstairs in a Rearz Barnyard and a sweatshirt. Most of my garage is fairly private - the sightlines in through the windows are punctuated outside by trees and shrubs, and inside, by encroaching shelves and piles of tires, so unless a neighbour walked almost to the edge of their property, with the intent of looking inside, the site of me in a diaper moving tools around would be obscured. 

I was in the middle of doing exactly that when I heard the door to the house shut, and realized that my wife might be heading over to the garage, either looking for me, or, to get something from the fridge. Less likely would be her bringing over a bag of garbage... that's almost entirely my purview. I froze on the spot for a nanosecond, and tried to remember where I'd stashed my pants... and couldn't recall. I could not remember bringing them down with me, so they must be upstairs, probably draped over a chair. That was when I had my moment of gratitude for the universe... first, I couldn't recall where my pants were, I'd spent so long wearing just a diaper. Isn't that cool? Second, I wasn't sprinting for the stairs. If my wife came in and found me organizing the garage in a big printed diaper, such circumstances, once considered apocalyptic, would now, at worst, elicit an eyeroll. I continued working. Eventually, I heard the door closing again. She'd taken the dog out. I finished my light tidy of the garage, headed upstairs and caught up on emails, and then I came on here, to document my thoughts, all while wearing only a comfy printed diaper below the waist. May it always be so. 

[Little Sherri]

I'm on the cusp of another golf trip to the Southern US. The weather they're predicting this weeks up here seems to be cooperating, in that it's supposed to be hovering around 0 to 3 degrees at night and not more than 10 degrees during the day, making it worth going 2000 km south. We've done trips like this before where it ended up being warmer at home than it was at our destination, but such will not be the case this week. 

As with our previous trips, we are benefiting from our relationship with our buddy who works for a major hotel chain, which has netted us screaming deals on the rooms. That's a double-edged sward for me, however, because were it solely my decision, I'd probably book myself my own room and just pay for it, so that I had a space to myself, which has obvious advantages when you're carting around "secret" underwear. But my doing that would thrust someone else into also having to pay entirely for their own room, and, our buddy is constrained to only booking two rooms at a time at his absurdly low rate, so were I to push for a third room, it would be at close to full pop. And, because we're getting such a good deal, we're staying in a really nice resort, so swinging for that private room would probably also have implications for my marital relations, because whereas I can brush off spending $100 a night to go golf with the boys, spending $400 a night... she'd notice that. And condemn it. 

It looks like there will be four of us splitting two rooms. If I get lucky, I'll get a room with my buddy who, I'm pretty sure, knows I wear diapers. Not that I'll therefor be able to sleep in just a Mermaid Tale, but, at least I won't have to skulk around like I'm smuggling contraband back and forth to the bathroom. Plus, the other two guys have CPAP machines - to me it just makes sense that the people who require compressors to stay alive through the night should be paired up. It'll sound like Darth Vader's bedroom in there. 

I'm mulling over which diapers to bring... it's been a while since I've experienced summer weather conditions. Unless I want to pay extra for a checked bag, we are fairly constrained in how much luggage we can bring, because our golf clubs essentially become our suitcases, and the US discount airline treats carry-on bags the same way they treat checked bags: they cost about as much as the ticket itself. So... do I bring more slim diapers, or, fewer good diapers? I'll need a few good ones with me anyway, because I am not going to risk sleeping in something lightweight - there is about a 100% chance I'll wet while I'm sleeping at least once, because, first of all, we'll be swilling beer and/or wine pretty much continually, and, second, because it ALWAYS happens when I'm sleeping in a hotel room, I think because I don't want it to. Whereas at home, I can go two weeks without an unsanctioned effluent discharge. 

The best bet is probably to plan for needing two professional grade cloth-backed diapers like (Rearz' Active Air or NorthShore's Air Supreme) per day, and then two plastic ones, one to sleep in, and one to wear out to the bars at night. At home, I can often get through 24 hours in just two or three diapers, but on the road, I'm going to want to freshen up more, and I'll be less inclined to push whatever I'm wearing past the 75% mark, because I do not want to have to do laundry while I'm there. 

I'll also have to figure out disposal. The last time we did this, the place we rented had a full kitchen and a nice, big garbage can for nice big garbage bags, into which it was easy to bury dead soldiers under the chip bags and fast food wrappers that are the hallmarks of these life-shortening adventures. The rooms we're getting this time are more like hotel rooms, I think. Hopefully the garbage cans in the bathrooms are American-sized, not European candy dishes, or I'll be taking my backpack with me to "go get us coffee" every morning. 

[Little Sherri]

I had a strange dream last night; I guess it qualifies as a "diaper dream", although in it, I was not wearing a diaper, but, interestingly, that was what the dream was about. For some reason, I was out with a bunch of people at a record store. The people I was with seemed like they were friends of mine, but I recognized none of them. Also, they were young, relatively speaking - they seemed like they were in their 20's, and I am not in my 20's. Not even close. But, regardless of that, we were moving as a pack - we'd arrived together, and we were browsing the store. In the dream, I was acutely aware that I did NOT have a diaper on, and, my underwear felt weird and uncomfortable, almost like sandpaper. I had it in my head that I'd be okay for a bit, but that I had to keep my eye on the ball, and not forget that I wasn't wearing a diaper. I also vaguely wondered if the store had a bathroom, but it felt like one of those downtown stores that occupied a building dating from the 1950's, so if there was a washroom, it would probably be down a steep staircase and be marked "employees only."

I never actually had to use the washroom in the dream, and at some point I just woke up, and was grateful to find myself lying in bed, wearing a Rearz Inspire+, a diaper which I still have on now.  It's been so long now since I've worn underwear that I woke up actually curious as to what they'd feel like, and if they would feel weird. I suspect the origins of the dream stem from my impending trip, with the sharing of hotel rooms and the general spending all day, everyday, with friends, with nary a break. 

I have some uncharacteristic (for these days) low-level diaper anxiety that is, in a way, nostalgia-inspiring, because it reminds me of how I felt in the lead up to some of the family vacations we took when I was a kid. One in particular involved meeting up with my aunt, uncle and cousins from Quebec, and driving to Florida in tandem, in two cars, ours a Dodge Aspen station wagon, theirs a Ford LTD. I remember finding the LTD to be luxurious because it had power windows and cloth seats, whereas our car had vinyl seats and roll-down windows. However, one serous advantage the Aspen had was the ability to fold down the back seats and create a flat floor from the rear glass to the back of the front seats. For that reason, my cousins wanted to ride with us for portions of the trip; my parents would spread out a blanket and let us play dinky cars in the back of the car. The laws of physics were clearly different in the 1980's than they are today, because back then, four unsecured children crawling around in the back of a station wagon would never have gone rocketing through the windshield like 50-lb missiles in the event of a collision, would they? No. 

The anxiety I'm referring to was an interesting milieux... I was looking forward to the trip, of course - two weeks of eating lunches in fast food restaurants and stopping for ice cream and playing on beaches. I was also, kind of looking forward to wearing diapers for portions of the trip - anytime we were going to be in the car for a good stretch, probably more than a few hours, everyone under 10 would eventually fall asleep, and for me, sleep meant unreliable bladder control. I was used to wearing diapers around my parents and my siblings - I wore them every night - but I was not used to wearing them into gas stations and restaurants, on playgrounds at rest stops, or, in front of my aunt, uncle and cousins. 

Plus, we'd be doing sleepovers in each other's motel rooms - never HOtel, always MOtel -  I now realize that the parents were giving each other nights off, or nights together, by hosting the whole crew. Between the time spent whiling away the miles in the the car, and the nights in hotel rooms, there were ample opportunities for one of my cousins to come across the box of diapers that was always somewhere in the trunk, or on a shelf in the motel room, or, to see a balled-up Pampers in a trash can, or, worst of all, an errant flash of white plastic above the waistband of pajamas or jeans. Plus, while my brother was typically loyal, my sister was not afraid to use my secret underwear against me, if it brought her any advantage. SO, I was excited about the trip, and vaguely excited about wearing diapers longer than the usual 8 PM to 8 AM shift, but also wracked with anxiety about what might happen... which is kind of how I feel now. I'm really looking forward to golfing and swilling beer and wine with my buddies.. but, in the back of my mind, I fear that I'll be juggling chainsaws in terms of carrying, wearing and disposing of my baby pants. 

It's always worked out in the past, and, this is the life I've chosen, so, I guess it's time to buckle up and see where this road takes me. Hopefully, I don't go rocketing through the windshield. 

[superabsorbantpolymer]

Hey Sherri, 

I'm a long time lurker on DD and your thread (as well as OZ and others). I wear 24/7 as much as possible, but haven't yet been able to do it completely like you guys. Just wanted to give you a word of encouragement, I love reading about your journey, its effects on your relationships, your newfound "dependence" etc. Keep on doing you! 

 

[superabsorbantpolymer]

On 4/15/2023 at 7:07 AM, oznl said:

I've decided that TENA is an acronym:  Tinkle Everywhere, Never Again...  I'm placing that acronym into to the public domain.  You are welcome.  😆

 

Tena in Europe makes very decent diapers, the Maxi/Ultima slip active fit are one of the most economical and dependable mass-market diapers available. I'd rate them 90% as good as Betterdry's. I've tried the Tena slips available in Australia/Asia/NA and they are a very poor diaper in comparison to their European namesake 

[oznl]

6 hours ago, superabsorbantpolymer said:

Tena in Europe makes very decent diapers, the Maxi/Ultima slip active fit are one of the most economical and dependable mass-market diapers available. I'd rate them 90% as good as Betterdry's. I've tried the Tena slips available in Australia/Asia/NA and they are a very poor diaper in comparison to their European namesake 

Interesting...  I guess I can only judge Tena by the product they make available to me and it seems that both Australia and Canada are getting the poverty-pack formula.  I'd be happy to try a European-formula variant and re-evaluate.  The local variants for me  have proved nearly worthless and I abandoned them less than 1 month into my 24/7 journey after the final "wet legs" adventure at a shopping mall.