Going Green (A Shifting Sands Story) - Chapter 12

[Little Sherri]

Chapter 1 - Christmas Morning

Oliver knelt in front of the Christmas tree and reached low underneath it, back against the wall. There were still a few presents left, mostly smaller ones, and his mom had asked him to fish for one in particular, for his sister Grace.

“Good things come in small packages…,” his mom said mischievously.

Oliver could feel his sister’s gaze on his back as he tried to discern which package was for Grace, and he didn’t like it, because he knew that as he reached forward, his pajama top was rising up from his pajama bottoms, and his pull-up was likely visible. He reached back with one hand to try and tug his shirt down, as his other hand turned over the remaining small packages, and he squinted in the dim and multicoloured light under the decorated evergreen. Pine needles tumbled down the back of his shirt; the tree had been up for a few weeks, and it was drying out.

“Don’t worry about your diapers, Oli, just pull all the small boxes out and we can sort them!”

Oliver turned and directed a lidded glance at Grace, who, at fifteen, acted like she was one of the adults in the household, and frequently tried to tell him what to do and how to do it. He caught his mother shooting her an annoyed glance as well, but there was more to it than that – it had an imploring quality, as if she were saying come on, Grace with her facial expression.

He wished, not for the first time, that he’d gotten changed before coming down earlier in the morning, but his mom had wanted them in their identical pajamas that she’d bought on some website. However, they were white, with red candy canes printed on them, and he knew as soon as he’d put them on the night before that the purple and blue print on his pull-up would show through them slightly, and that the medium-rise waistband would be perpetually under the high-rise training pants.

Training pants. That’s a stupid description for a product that fits a twelve-year-old.

He didn’t exactly enjoy his absorbent underpants being discernable under his pajamas to the people in the room, but it didn’t really bother him that much, either. They all knew he wore protection overnight. Grace might toss him the occasional barbed comment, but, that was par for the course, and he could give as good as he got, taking potshots at her skills with makeup or how she was always wearing t-shirts for bands she didn’t actually like. The problem was, this was Christmas morning. So while he was rooting around under the tree and feeling pine needles cascade across his bare lower back to pile up along the elastic of his pull-up, he knew that his dad was shooting HD video on his phone – he even had a handheld gimbal for it. And, he knew that video was being sent to his aunts and uncles and cousins.

Even that wasn’t the worst of it. Snippets of the video would end up in the hands of his dad’s PR team, where it would be filtered and edited and ultimately shared with his constituents on his website and his social accounts. His dad was a local politician, and politicians love sharing wholesome videos of their families opening perfectly-wrapped Christmas presents in front of a perfectly-decorated Christmas tree. Or, at least, their handlers do. And many of his dad’s constituents were also the parents of his friends and classmates, as he was reminded of on his twelfth birthday, a few months prior, when a video of his family surprising him first thing in the morning was posted on his dad’s social media.

He'd been in dreamland when the door came flying open and the lights went on and a stack of pancakes was presented to him with twelve candles in it, while his mom and his dad and his sister sang ‘Happy Birthday’ and Sparky, their cocker spaniel, ran in circles and barked. Which was all well and good, except that Christine, his dad’s assistant, was standing above it all with the latest and greatest phone in that same handheld gimbal, livestreaming the moment. And when Oliver leaned forward to let his mom put a birthday hat on his head, the side of his pull-up came into the shot. WHICH he found out about when his buddy texted him a screen capture of it, a half-hour later. By then, it had circled the globe, as far as he was concerned. A guy at school that he didn’t like had called him “puddles” the following week, and his response to that had landed him in the principal’s office, followed by a stern lecture from his parents when he got home.

“We’re a public family, Oliver – your dad runs for office every four years. You can’t be getting into fights at school.”

Version of that had been drilled into his head since before he even understood the word ‘public’.

And now, his dad was running to be the Commissioner for the Department of Environmental Protection for all of Washington State. This was no city council seat. The stakes were higher than they had ever been. His mom was acting like his dad was running for President. Grace was taking her cues from her mom. Dad’s assistants were at the house almost twenty-four hours a day. Meanwhile, Oliver was more aligned with Sparky; both of them wished that things would go back to normal.

Oliver shook his head and retrieved the last of the presents from under the tree. There were still two other presents that hadn’t been unwrapped, but they weren’t under the tree, because they didn’t fit under there. They were stacked up to the right of the tree, in front of the fireplace, and both he and Grace had been instructed that they were “for later”, whatever that meant. The top one was medium-sized, and the one below qualified as ‘large’. He intuited that these must be their Big Presents, because everything that they’d opened up to now had been nice, but not exactly life-altering. And Christmas had pretty much always followed the same script – there was a bunch of nice small stuff, and then one or two grand presentations.

Oliver saw as soon as he pulled the remaining small gifts out that a couple of them were for his grandparents, and that one had Grace’s name on the tag, but he still made a show of examining each of them, tilting his head left and right as though reading hieroglyphics, and then squinting and looking back at Grace, before moving on to the next package.

“What’s a matter, baby, you forget how to read?” Grace taunted him.

“Grace Anne Holbrook, watch your tone,” his mother snapped back. “Dad is recording this for his team. Be nice.”

Oliver looked over at his dad, and began leaning towards Grace with a present in his hand. When the camera panned to Grace, he made eye contact with her and stuck his tongue out, causing her to make a sour face as she received the gift from him.

“Cut, cut…,” his dad said. “Oliver, take the present from Grace and hand it to her again. Grace, nice smile please.”

Grace rolled her eyes. “Pull your shirt down, dummy. Your diaper is going to be famous.”

“Grace! Enough with that talk, not now, we talked about this,” his mom responded, and Oliver was again a bit confused at her inflection, her emphasis on the word ‘now’. He held the present out to Grace but looked over at his mom, as his dad shot the hand-off like he was James Cameron.

Grace took the present and smiled at the camera, then she sat back on the white leather couch, crossed her legs and pulled the ribbon off of it. Her red and white Santa hat matched Oliver’s, their mom’s, and their dad’s. They’d tried to get a hat on Sparky, but he was having none of it, and threated to shred the hat, so now it was on the head of a three-foot wooden statue of a nutcracker soldier, next to the fireplace.

Oliver sat back on the gunstock hardwood floor, and felt the seat of his pull-up squish damply underneath him. He didn’t worry about it, however, as he’d been wearing them since he was a toddler. He knew that this one would be good for another half hour or so.

Grace took a breath when she lifted the top off of the box. “Oh…. My…. God…. THANKYOUTHANKYOUTHANKYOU!!!!!!” she exhaled in one breath.

Oliver was surprised at the exuberance of her reaction. This wasn’t the big present, right?

Grace pulled a smaller, white box out of the box she’d unwrapped, and held it up. The top of the inner box had already been removed.

All the better for the footage, Oliver thought to himself.

She tilted it forward and slowly moved it from left to right, like she was displaying one of the many possible prizes on a game show. Oliver saw that it was an Apple watch with a rose gold band.

“It’s an EIGHT!!!!” Grace exclaimed.

Holy crap.

Oliver knew phone models and accessories like some of his dad’s golf buddies knew their BMW and Porsche hierarchies, so he realized that Grace’s watch had cost a pretty penny.

This WAS her big present. So what the heck is in those two boxes by the fireplace?

[CCApril]

I love your stories!

Kelly is mean, insensitive and cruel to Zack.  But she would never, ever stoop so low as to give Zack baby furniture for his BIG Christmas present. If that goes live the father should go to jail, not be elected! Sad times ahead for poor Oliver. 

When I was young our "Santa Gifts" would always show up Christmas morning unwrapped with a Name tag. So much fun. No crib or highchair though. Not that my older sister would have been any better than Oliver's.

April

[CDfm]

Very interesting start.  There really quite a bit going on here that right now we know nothing about.  Sure has me wanting to read more. 

[A_Pale_Spirit]

I have another one of your stories to look forward to!

Great start! As always, excellent writing.

[martijn]

looking forward to the next chapter.

 

Maybe the sister is made to go through the training.

And in the 2 boxes are training potty's for both of them

[Kaleros]

Nice introduction. I am looking forward to the next chapter, and I know that Oliver's 'big' present will be cloth diapers and a changing table. 

[sklawlor]

I really like your writing. I'm guessing from the title that it's also cloth diapers.

What other stories have you written besides this one and shifting sands? I want to check out more of your work.

 

[Little Sherri]

28 minutes ago, sklawlor said:

What other stories have you written besides this one and shifting sands? I want to check out more of your work.

This is it, basically - I'm new to this, more or less. I've written some stuff not related to the topic at hand, but never "published" any of it. I took a couple of writing courses in school decades ago and always enjoyed it, but never really found myself with enough time to delve into it. One of my challenges is that I start one of these and then it takes me a couple of weeks to produce the next chapter, because I get too busy. My apologies in advance if it takes a while for me to flesh this story out. 

I'm doing something a bit different here than I did with the man Shifting Sands story, in that I wrote a lot of that out and then read and reread it before posting anything, whereas in Going Green, I'm flying more by the seat of my pants, and trying to post it after only some basic editing to make sure I'm using names correctly and my spelling and punctuation is okay. I may abandon that approach if I discover I suck at it, lol. 

[sklawlor]

I would have never guessed that you only have these two stories. that's a testament to how good your writing is. I was an English major in college and actually wanted to be a novelist but after I dropped out of a graduate program in counselling, I got a synthesizer and discovered that I'm much better at putting sounds together than words. 

[Alutheria]

An excellent opening chapter. Always a treat whenever you post something - and a new story as well! Going to be interesting to see where this one goes, though I already have some thoughts.

[justme9000]

Off to a great start. Hoping for a departure from the cruelty and indifference of Kelly in Shifting Sands.

[Andyman3]

Oh cool another story based off of "shifting Sands". Interesting beginning, quite alot of intro stuff made it hard to follow. Curious what will happen next because this was just setting the tone. 

[Little Sherri]

Chapter 2 – A Systemic Problem

“Oliver…,” his mother cooed, “it’s time for you to unwrap your big presents!”

Oliver eyed the boxes next to the fireplace.

Both of those are for me? Wow.

He knew the Apple watch was an expensive piece. He couldn’t think of anything on his wish list that was of comparable value. Not that his gifts had to precisely match the value of what was spent on his sister, but his parents tended to try to land their Christmas and birthday windfalls in the same ballpark.

So maybe two gifts would make sense, although it seems awfully generous.

He tried to discern what was in the boxes as he stood up to examine them. There was a smaller one and a much larger one. The larger one held his attention, in particular.

A drone? A compound bow? A gaming PC?

As though reading his thoughts, his mom said, “Open the smaller box first, sweetie.”

And so it begins.

Oliver lifted the smaller of the two boxes, which was still of a decent size, and noted that it had some heft to it. He placed it on the floor, deciding to position himself seated behind it, with his back to the fireplace, so that the footage of him unwrapping it would be less likely to include the top of his pull-up.

I gotta get changed soon – this dampness is getting annoying.

He read the tag on the package out loud – “To Oliver, with love from Mom & Dad & Grace.” He imagined that his name had been on the tag for Grace’s fancy watch, but she’d been too rushed about see what was inside the package, to bother reading the tag aloud, or perhaps at all.

The wrapping paper had the same candy cane motif that their pajamas did. It tore away quickly, revealing, to his astonishment, the packaging for a PlayStation 5. He currently had a PS4, and was more than happy with it, but some of his buddies had been promoted to the new platform, and he was eager to join their ranks, but he did not think that it was in the cards quite yet.

“Whoaaaaa…… Jeez, guys, this is frickin’ awesome! Holy crap, er, I mean, crow!”

“And there’s still one more to go!” Grace commented. With perhaps a tad more enthusiasm than the moment called for, Oli thought.

“Now, before you get too excited, I do want to say, there are going to be a couple of rules about that gaming system that we need to discuss,” his mother pronounced.

Oliver nodded along. Yeah, yeah, homework comes first, don’t meet strangers online, down buy things in games without permission.

He was so busy studying the specifications on the box that he practically forgot about the other package.

“Oli,” his dad chimed in, “open the other present as well. They’re tied together.”

Oliver raised an eyebrow.

Is it a TV? But it seems too small. A gaming chair, one that requires assembly? THAT might be it.

Oliver dragged the other box across the wood floor and sat behind it, as he had with the first, before once again reading the tag. “To Oliver, with lots and lots of love from Mom, Dad, and Grace.”

Lots and lots of love this time?

He tore into the paper, tossing it aside as it came off in strips. The box underneath the wrapping paper did not reveal much about its contents; it was glossy and white and had a few words printed across the top of it, in a pastel green: Eco-Dry Happy Baby Systems. Below that was a sticker that looked like it had been hand-applied, and was slightly off of level to the printed banner: Size XL.

Oliver was confused, and he felt around the edges of the box for a way to open it, eventually finding clear round decals that held the edges shut, one on each side of the top panel. He peeled them away, reached down at the front, pulled the front flap forward, and then opened the top of the box like it was briefcase.

Inside, Oliver saw a number of clear plastic bags, neatly nested in slots in a molded foam insert. Top and center was a sheet of glossy paper with a picture on it, and a paragraph of text. He picked it up.

The picture, which took up the top third of the sheet, showed a smiling baby, in white plastic pants, sitting on what looked like planet Earth, but depicted at the size of a basketball. Oliver furrowed his eyebrows and read the page to himself at double speed.

Thank you for purchasing the Eco-Dry Happy Baby Ecological Diapering System. The typical North American baby will use 6000 to 8000 diapers in their first three years of life. The Eco-Dry Diapering System consists of organic cotton pre-fold diapers, absorbent doublers, and chemically inert vinyl panties with hygienic wholly-enclosed elastics, that, when used as directed, can last for years, diverting thousands of pounds of waste from landfills, while providing an organic, comfortable, reliable and leak-free diapering experience for your baby!

Please follow washing instructions closely, and, watch the savings roll in. Our planet thanks you, and so does your baby’s bottom!

Oliver sat back, dropped the paper back on top of the box’s contents, and looked over at his mom, confusion written large across his face.

“What the hell is a ‘diapering system’, and what am I going to do with it? Is this for Grace’s dolls or something?”

Grace guffawed and then covered her mouth. Her mom shot her a hard glance. Oliver noted that his dad had lowered the camera after shooting footage of him unwrapping the box.

Oliver’s mom got up off the sofa and walked over to where Oliver was seated on the floor, looking bewildered. Her slippers whispered as she seated herself next to him with her legs out in front of her, and put an arm over his shoulder, pulling some of his weight in towards her. He turned and looked at her face, which was almost too close to focus on. She kissed him on the forehead.

“Oli, sweetie, don’t concentrate too much on the semantics. This company makes products in all sizes, but their literature is kind of aimed at younger children.”

Oliver furrowed his eyebrows even further. “What am I going to do with a diapering system…?”, he whispered.

“Oh, Oli, sweetie pie, that’s just what they’re calling it for marketing purposes. But if you think about it, what you have on right now is basically a diapering system. They just call them pull-ups, because that’s what people your age prefer to call them.”

“Yeah, Oli,” Grace chimed in. “They’re pull-up DIAPERS, you know. Just because you don’t tape them on, that doesn’t mean they’re not diapers. If you wear them to pee in them, they’re diapers, no matter what you call them or what they’re made of.”

Oliver’s cheeks burned bright red, and he became acutely aware of the sogginess underneath him. He’d been absentmindedly dribbling throughout the morning, and now he deeply wished he’d thought to hold it, and also, that he’d gotten changed before coming down to open his presents. This whole situation would have been easier to navigate if he wasn’t so intensely self-conscious.

His mom rubbed his back and continued. “As you know, Oli, your dad is running for an important position in the state government. He is hoping to become the single person most responsible for environmental issues in the entire state of Washington! Part of that process is going to involve us, as a family, becoming more environmentally conscious. I don’t know if you know this, but your dad and I have been looking at electric cars. And your sister is going to start using refillable cups for her iced coffees, things like that.”

Oliver’s dad was filming again, and he spoke from behind his phone, as though doing a voice-over. “As Washington State’s Environmental Commissioner, one of my main focuses is going to be reducing our state’s consumption of single-use plastics. Disposable plastic cups, straws, packaging, shopping bags, cutlery, and even disposable baby diapers, are all going to be part of my campaign to reduce what we send to landfill. Everyone in this family is going to pitch in and do their part, just as I hope everyone in this great state of ours will. One of your contributions, Oli, is going to be cooperating with our switch from disposable bedtime diapers, to reusable bedtime diapers.”

He lowered the camera again, and then continued in a more personal, less narrative voice. “We knew going back into diapers might not be your favourite idea, and that maybe environmental stewardship wasn’t going to be a major incentive for you, so, we decided to sweeten the pot a bit. That PS5 there is your reward for being cooperative. As long as you’re happily wearing your new diapers, you can play with it to your heart’s content.”

Oliver’s mom felt him physically startle at his dad’s last sentence.

“Then I don’t give a crap about the PS5 – take it back! I’m fine with my PS4.”

Oliver realized a second too late that he had perhaps prematurely revealed his hand. His parents made eye contact, and then his mom resumed the conversation, using a slightly sterner tone.

“It’s not just the PS5, young man. Your PS4, your phone, your computer, your tablet… your access to all of the things you like is dependent upon your behaviour in this house, just as it has always been. You know that, Oli. Your dad and I are always willing to discuss things openly with you and with Grace, but, ultimately, we are in charge, and whereas the state of Washington is a democracy, the inside of this house is not. You’re still too young to vote, anyway.” She tussled his hair playfully.

A lone tear rolled around his nose and down his red cheek, from the corner of his right eye, stopping when it hit the edge of his lip.

“SO, Grace has to give up disposable cups…. You’re buying an electric car… And I have to wear diapers? That’s fair!?! That’s everyone doing their part?”

“You already wear diapers, Oli. You just have to get used to wearing better ones,” his dad said, once again in the tone of a narrator.

While his parents were talking to him, Grace had gotten up off the couch and walked around behind him. She leaned down, pinched the upper edge of his pull-up, pulled it back, and let it snap lightly against his lower back. Oliver reacted as thought he’d been stung by a wasp, arching his back and turning his head, but his mom pulled him in tighter, keeping him from wheeling around on his sister.

Grace reached over him, pulled out one of the clear baggies from inside the box, and held it up in front of him.

“Look, Oli, these plastic pants have trains on them. Isn’t that cool?”

Tears streaked down both sides of Oliver’s cheeks as he closed his eyes and leaned into his mom’s embrace.

[Pierry Louys]

Great chapter ! Curious to see how oli gonna react being role model of cloth diapers !!

[A_Pale_Spirit]

Excellent chapter! Definitely looking forward to more!

[CDfm]

Poor Oli.  That’s not the kind of thing you want waiting for you under the Christmas tree.  That’s along the same line as buying your wife a new vacuum cleaner.  Your sleeping in the dog house if you pull that kind of stunt.   Grace needs to be knocked down a notch or two herself.  She is just plain cruel!

 I loved the new chapter though and I am looking forward to reading more. 

[justforfun]

A great start to a story.  Looking forward to it!

[D503]

Great start. Be interesting to see how this develops from thick bedwetting nappies and plastic pants (hung out to dry in the sun? Best for the environment) to tantrums, more public exposure and more.

[Little Sherri]

Chapter 3 – Learning Curve

 “I’m not taking my clothes off.”

“No, no, you’ve misunderstood – you can leave your pull-up and your shirt on if you want to. I just want to watch the online video and practice a couple of times, and I think it would be good if your dad and Grace knew how to diaper you, as well.”

Oliver looked at his mom with pleading eyes. “Can Christine and her guy-friend leave, at least?”

Christine chuckled and pushed her long blond hair back over her shoulders. She and her fiancé, Allen, had left their condo downtown to come out to the suburbs and help Representative Holbrook move some furniture around for an hour. Although it was Christmas Day, Christine did not mind making herself available to Robert. It came with the territory.

Allen shrugged, smiled, and said, “Well, if we’re done here, I wouldn’t mind getting back to the apartment and tidying up a bit before your parents come.”

Christine turned to Robert. “Are we done?”

Robert gave her a grateful smile. “Thanks, Chris, thanks, Allen, I never would have gotten this up the stairs without banging up the walls, even with Cheryl & Grace’s help.”

He turned and placed a hand on the heavy dresser, devoid of drawers, that Allen had helped him carry upstairs. It was long, wide and of medium height, and it had wooden steps built into it on the righthand side, in the same dark wood, that could be cleverly folded into the unit when not in use.

“It’s a classy piece, I have to say. I’ve never seen a dresser with a changing table built into it before. Where’d you hear about this company, Cheryl?”

“I was at a baseball game with a girlfriend in the fall – her son Mitchell, a friend of Oli’s, plays on a local team. It was just an excuse to meet up with some ladies I haven’t see for a while, and drink some wine in a public park, you know how it goes…”

Christine and Allen both chuckled.

“And Oli had a chance to watch his buddy play baseball. I was talking with them about, you know, Robert’s campaign, and some of the lifestyle changes we were thinking of making around here, to be consistent with the public messaging and all that. I mentioned Oli’s pull-ups, and one of the moms, a lady named Kelly – you wouldn’t know her, Rob – mentioned that she was going through a similar situation with her son, who plays shortstop on the team with Oli’s friend. She had transitioned him out of pull-ups, into something better – I guess he’d been having accidents and leaking through them.”

Oliver interrupted her.  “That’s Zack, the shortstop? The kid who hurt his leg and couldn’t play?”

“Yes, honey, yes, Zack’s mom is Kelly, but don’t say anything to him or Mitchell about it, at least until I talk to Kelly, okay? I don’t know if anyone on the team knows about his, uh, issues. That might be private.”

“But they know about mine now…,” Oli said in almost a whisper.

“Oh, get over yourself, Oli,” Cheryl responded. “Those ladies don’t care what you wear – they have their own kids to worry about. They’re not going to go tell their kids that some friend of a teammate wears diapers after school. Anyway, Christine and Allen want to get going, so let me finish – I would have thought you’d be interested in this as well, Oli. SO, Kelly – the mom from the team – gave me the name of a therapist who’s been treating her son, who also runs an online store for all kinds of products related to, you know, wetting issues with kids. I spoke to her assistant on the phone, and she set me up with an account, so I was able to order everything from their website. I got the changing table, the diapering system, the special detergent, the pail, diaper cream, the works. And, she sent me links to videos that they’ve produced, explaining how the system works. Anyway, I know you want to get going, so don’t let us keep you.”

Christine gave Cheryl a quick hug, and tussled Zack’s hair as she walked by. She looked at Robert and said, “Get me some good footage, okay?” Robert gave her a reassuring nod.

Allen shook Robert’s hand, and then reached for Oliver’s. After a moment, he unclenched his fist and took the proffered hand, shaking it briefly, without making eye contact.

“Nice to meet you, Robert, Cheryl, Grace, Oliver. Enjoy your changing table.”

They turned and walked out the bedroom door. Christine was in and out of the house so frequently that they had long since abandoned the convention of showing her to the door. She knew her way out.

Grace smiled mischievously at Oliver. “Okay, daddy’s helpers have left, off with the PJ’s and let’s get this over with – I want to go set up my watch.” She took two steps forward, squatted, and in one motion, pulled Oliver’s pajama bottoms down to his ankles, revealing a soggy purple and blue pull-up, printed to look like y-front briefs at the front, but with a wide smiling cartoon puppy on the back.

“WHAT THE FUCK!?!” Oliver exclaimed, while reaching to simultaneously push his sister away, and, drag his pajama pants back up. He missed on both counts, because his sister jumped back as soon as she let go of his pants, and, his mom hooked him under the arm and hauled him back to his feet.

“Kick them to the side, Oli,” she said sternly. “I asked you to take them off already.” Cheryl reached down and somewhat roughly tugged Oliver’s shirt up to his shoulders.

“MOM! You said I could leave my shirt on!”

“That was before you swore and tried to hit your sister. Hand me your shirt.”

Oliver looked at his dad with reddening cheeks.

“You should have listened to your mom, big guy. Even I can’t help you now.”

Fresh tears spilled over his eyelids as he pulled his pajama shirt over his head, and handed it to his mom, who folded it and placed it on his bed. He could feel his pull-up succumbing to gravity; he’d been in it since the previous evening, and the elasticity in the side panels had notably declined.

“Can I please go change this before we do anything?” he begged.

Grace guffawed again. “Baby wants to change his diaper before he changes his diaper!”

Cheryl shot her a lidded gaze, then opened her eyes and put on a kind face, before addressing her son, who looked demoralized, standing in the middle of the room in his soggy pull-up.

“We’re going to change you into one of your fresh new diapers, Oli – there’s no point putting on another pull-up. But you can leave that one on while we all practice, if you like – or, you can take it off. It’s up to you.”

Oliver’s head dropped like it was on a hinge.

“See if you can figure out how to deploy the staircase on your fancy changing table,” his dad suggested with a note of encouragement.

Oliver took a slow gallows-walk over to the changing table that doubled as a dresser, or, dresser that doubled as a changing table, or whatever it was. He felt his heavy pull-up swaying slightly behind him. The drawers that fit into the dresser-table were still sitting in a stack on the floor; his mom wanted to go through what was in his old dresser and get rid of anything that didn’t fit. His old dresser had been spirited away, and his clothes were piled neatly on his bed.

He grasped what looked like a wooden handle that partially protruded from the bottom, on the side of the dresser that everyone was looking at. When he pulled it, the side panel of the dresser accordioned out, displaying a clockwork of brass bars and hinges, which rotated planks until, somewhat amazingly, there was now a staircase affixed to the side of the piece.

“There you go! Wasn’t that cool?” his dad proclaimed.

Oliver shrugged and began to ascend the staircase, placing a hand on wall beside it to steady himself.

“Oh, oh, hang on!” his mom erupted, then ran out of the room. Oliver stood on the top step like a diver on a board, waiting for the signal to jump. He reached behind himself and gave an upward tug on the waistband of his pull-up.

Outside in the hall, there was a rustling of plastic, and then his mom came striding into the room while working at removing what looked like a large cushion from a thin plastic bag.

“This is the topper – it’s dished, and it has a safety strap, so that you can’t roll off. It’ll be more comfortable than lying on the wood, I’d imagine.”

She pulled it free from the bag and then placed it on the top of the dresser, concave side up. There was a black braided strap at about chest level on the cushion, that was secured with a black plastic buckle in the middle. The material on the topper depicted light blue cartoon trains going back and forth under puffs of grey smoke, along wavy tracks that went off into the horizon. Oliver realized that they matched the trains on the plastic pants that Grace had pulled from the kit.

“Ahhh, mom, you couldn’t have gotten anything plainer than that?” Oliver exclaimed.

“It’s a diaper changing table, Oliver – most of this stuff is aimed at a younger audience than you. I did the best I could. Hang on, let me lay out a diaper for you – sorry, we’re doing this in the wrong order. Grace – pull all the baggies out of Oli’s diaper kit and open them up.”

Grace placed the diaper bit on a bare area of his bed. His mom placed the topper on the dresser, and undid the buckle, pushing the straps off to the side. Grace pulled several bags out of the box, rapid fire, and tore into them.

“We’d better keep these bags away from Oli, mom – they say not to give them to babies,” she exclaimed with a mock tone of warning in her voice.  

“Shut up, Grace,” Oli pouted.

“Look right here, dumb dumb – it says right on the bag.”

“Shut up.”

Grace paused and looked over at her dejected brother with a look of pure joy on her face.

“Oh… My… Gosh…,” she said breathily. She fiddled with a small, opaque bag, tearing the side open, and she spilled the contents onto his comforter, beside the box.

“Pacifiers! One even has trains on it, like your changing mat… wait…,” she ripped into another bag. “Plastic panties! Also with trains! You are going to look so adorable. And there’s light blue ones and dark clear ones and white ones – you have like seven pairs!”

Grace held up the pair emblazoned with the same print as the changing pad, and ran her finger along the lace ruffle across the back of it. “So, so cute. My my, lucky boy.”

“Get me a diaper, Grace – you can go through the rest of the box afterwards. And pins.”

Grace, ignoring her mother for a moment, dug out a folded brochure, opened it, and gave it a quick scan.

“I see what you need, mom,” she said. Tearing a coupe of baggies open, she walked back over from the bed, and proudly displayed what she’d pulled out. “We have a diaper, one of the doublers, plastic panties – I chose the train ones, Oli – pins, and a disposable liner.” She held out her hand and Cheryl took two steel pins with light blue plastic heads.

“Why does he need the liners, mom?” Grace asked.

“They’re to make clean up easier, if, uh, someone poops in their diaper. They’re completely biodegradable – we can flush them down the toilet.” Cheryl piled the items at the opposite end of the changing table.

“Hear that, Oli? You can poop in them, too!”

Cheryl turned and put a hand on Oliver’s shoulder. “They’re for just in case, sweetheart. I know you don’t poop in your pull-up diapers. But your new diapers will be pinned on - they aren’t as easy to take off.”

Grace pushed on. “What about pacifiers? Why’d they include those?”

Cheryl smiled and turned her head to the side while bending over, so that she could somewhat catch Oliver’s downcast eyes. “Some kids get a little sad when they’re put in diapers. Dr. Paige said that pacifiers can provide emotional support through those difficult early days. She also showed me some panties and pajamas they have that are lockable, but I said we probably wouldn’t need those. Right, Oli?”

Lockable?!?

Oliver slowly nodded his head. A tear dripped off his chin and landed on his chest.

“Pass me one of the pacifiers, Grace,” Cheryl said, without taking her eyes off Oliver.

Grace turned and skipped back to the bed, returning with the train pacifier, which was cream coloured, with a blue and red steam engine printed on the center of the button that held the handle on it.

Cheryl took the pacifier from Grace, unfolded the handle, and cleaned the nipple in her own mouth, then wiped it with her hands. She turned it upright, and delicately touched the clear silicone nipple to Oliver’s quivering lips. Almost without realizing he’d done it, Oliver accepted the device, feeling the shield come into gentle contact with his lips.

Cheryl gave him a pat on the back, and then began examining the items that Grace had brought over to her. Oliver followed her with his eyes.

Grace came back from the bed again, this time holding the brochure. She flipped it over and showed her mom a diagram.

“Look, mom. You fold the diaper in on itself, in three equal parts, and then you fan out the top and the bottom. You put the doubler and the liner in the middle, and then you add the baby.”

“THUT UP!” Oliver enunciated with difficulty around his pacifier.

Grace turned the brochure and showed it to Oliver. “See? It is a baby, baby.”

Oliver saw that the diagram did indeed show a baby being sat in the middle of the folded length of cloth. His mom dutifully folded one of the diapers as shown, laid it out on the changing pad, and then put a doubler and a liner in the center of it.

“Carefully turn around on the stairs, Oliver, and then sit your bum down on your diaper,” his mom said. She held a hand out for him to use to steady himself.

Oliver grasped her extended arm, and carefully pivoted on the top stair, before squatting and sitting back onto the changing pad. Robert came around in front of him, with the phone stabilizing contraption. Oliver closed his eyes.

“Lay back, honey,” his mom said in a reassuring voice. Oliver laid back, and then she fastened the safety strap around his chest below his arms, and took the slack out of the straps. Fat tears formed in the corners of his eyes and spilled down his temples. His pacifier sat limply in his mouth.

“You need to suck on that for it to help, Oli,” his mom said in a slightly exasperated tone. Oliver pressed the nipple into the roof of his mouth and began sucking, although he did not see how it could possibly help him feel any better. But he was used to listening to his parents. NOT listening probably wouldn’t improve his circumstances, either.

Cheryl pulled her phone out of the side pocket of her pajama pants, turned it to Grace, and opened her email inbox. She selected an email, opened it, and then clicked a link.

“Who’s Ellen Chan,” Grace inquired.

“That’s Dr. Paige’s assistant.”

A video opened on the phone, as Robert came around and filmed Grace and Cheryl focusing on it, with Oliver laid out on his change table in the background, eyes squeezed shut.

Although his eyes were closed, he could hear the voiceover that accompanied the video.

“Hello, I’m Ellen Chan. I’m a pediatric nurse working with Dr. Amanda Paige, and this will be a brief overview on how to fold, fasten and cover a cloth diaper. Cloth diapers have been employed for centuries, but are less common these days, as disposables have become ubiquitous. Disposables are very convenient, and we do have a full range of disposable diapering products, but, for environmental and other reasons, some prefer reusable products when diapering their children. For that reason, we have teamed up with EcoDry, to offer their Happy Baby Diapering System, in larger sizes, for older children.

“Remember, regardless of the age of the child, or the type of diaper being employed, diaper changes are a special time, and they should be handled with care and sensitivity. They can be a source of stress for your young one, or, they can be a bonding moment that will serve to strengthen your relationship. The choice is up to you. We suggest that both parents participate in diapering, so that they are presenting a united circle of care. This can assist with the acceptance process, as young ones adapt to their new wardrobe requirements…”

Ellen Chan droned on, and began talking about the intricacies of diaper folding and pinning, but Oliver did his best to tune it out. He felt, rather than watched, as first his mother, and then his sister, took turns pinning a cloth diaper onto him. Grace pinned it a great deal more tightly than his mom did, to the point that his mom whispered, “Maybe loosen it up a bit, honey, it’s digging into his hips…” when Grace was leaning in to apply the second pin. He felt it loosen marginally.

Next, he heard his dad give a tutorial to Grace on where to stand, presumably with the camera, and then he felt the diaper being unpinned with some effort, repositioned, and pinned again, this time, limply. Finally, it was unpinned again, and he was preparing to sit up, when two hands came together at his right hip, and in one motion, tore the side of his pull-up open.

Oliver’s eyes sprung open and he tried to sit up, but the safety strap held him prone against the changing mat. His mom reached over and quickly tore the other side of his pullup downward across his hip.

“Lift your bum bum, sweetheart,” she said with a tilted head and a smile.

Oliver stayed still, so she gave him a gentle tap on his thigh with an open hand. “Come on, let’s get that wet thing off of you.”

Leaning his head back, Oliver shifted his hips upward, and he felt his soggy bedtime underpants slide out from underneath him, and get rolled up like a burrito.

“Here, Grace,” his mom said.

“EWWW!!!” was Grace’s response.

“Take it,” she hissed.

“This is disgusting…” his sister spat, as she ran off, presumably towards the bathroom garbage, which was where Oliver had been putting his pull-ups since as far back as he could remember.

He felt his mom smooth out the front of the cloth diaper, pull the sides up, and once again pin them into place, with a firm snugness that was maybe a third less constricting than Grace’s straining had produced.  She gave him a gentle pat on the stomach.

“Good boy, let’s just get your panties on, and you’ll be set for the rest of the day.”

Oliver’s eyes opened again, and he spat the pacifier out. It plopped onto his chest and scuttered down under his arm.

“Wha…. Wha… Why?” he stuttered.

“Sweeting, this will be a good opportunity for you to get used to your new underpants, and, it will help us all to figure out how well they hold up. Now lift your feet up.”

Oliver was too overwhelmed to say anything further, but numbly lifted his feet. Grace came back into the room in time to see his mom thread the leg openings of the choo-choo-train plastic pants over his ankles, and then she opened the safety strap, and took his right hand, helping him to sit up and then to stand on the top step, before she tugged the diaper cover up into place, and then adjusted the fit to make sure no white cloth was exposed.

Oliver stood on the top step of the folding stairs, with his waist just above eye-level on his mom, as she tugged and shifted his plastic pants like a designer dressing a fashion model. His dad had stopped filming – he guessed that the amount of video that could possibly be posted had already been exceeded. What they had on the phone was a short documentary, not a thirty-second tidbit.

He felt the soft bulk of the cloth diaper beneath and around him. It was snug around his waist and between his thighs, but was billowy and loose in other places. The plastic pants were similarly snug around his legs and waist, but roomy inside. When he put his hands at his sides, fold of vinyl brushed against the insides of his wrists.

These things are huge…

Oli took a tentative step down, as though unsure if his new garment would affect his balance. He felt the diaper shift, slide and pull around him. It was not uncomfortable, exactly… just, different. It felt like it was warming up inside, already.

He looked at his mother’s face, which was studying him with what looked like concern, and, curiosity.

“What about when I have to pee…?” he asked, as though he’d found a conclusive argument that would extract him from his current predicament.

“Silly boy, pee in your diaper. How else are we going to figure out how these work?”

Oliver descended with thudding, dejected steps, his eyes now focused on the floor.

“Can I put clothes on?”

“No, sweetie,” his mother answered gently.

“But I want to cover my diaper…”

“Your plastic panties cover your diaper, sweetie.”

“Then I want to cover my plastic… uh, pants.”

“We need to be able to see how you’re making out for today, sweetie.”

“Yeah, Oli, why would you want to cover those panties up? You look like a doll!” Grace offered.

“Now, why don’t you go unpack your Play Station machine?” his mom asked brightly.

Grace walked up to Oliver and took one of his hands. Leading him out of the room, she paused to push his pacifier firmly against his lips. Tears once again blurred Oliver’s vision.

“Careful on the stairs,” she cooed.  

Oliver descended the stairs one step behind his sister, as his mother watched, and his father reviewed the footage on his phone.

“I don’t know how much of this I can use,” he said out loud. “Oli looks pretty dejected. That’s not exactly the tone I want to set. Embracing the environment sucks, but we have to do it. This message brough to you by the campaign of Robert Holbrook… ”

“Give him a few days to get used to it, and maybe we can get some better images.”

[Pierry Louys]

Poor little one !!

[A_Pale_Spirit]

Wow, incredible chapter!

As usual with all your work, it's so well-written! Incredibly descriptive, and just great. I love his sister's reactions too 

Definitely looking forward to much more!

[Andyman3]

Interesting story. Poor thing won't even let him put pants over them. Curious what will happen next

[CDfm]

Great chapter.  
I don’t even know what to say.  I feel so bad for Oli.  He has absolutely no options available except to put up with the treatment.  I have a very strong urge to punch Grace in the face.  Then Cheryl isn’t really much better.  She humiliates Oli with a very small amount of compassion. She at least pretends to care about his feelings. Then we have the typical politician dad, who like most politicians is completely clueless. 
On one hand I am not sure I want to read more.  It hurts to be feeling so bad for Oli.  Then on the other I really want, and need to know what happens to him. 

[Emmi]

Is the dad really trying to use pictures of his bedwetting child getting a diaper change for his campaign? That poor poor kid. Meanwhile both parents just stand by and let Grace make fun of him? I hope Ellen Chan helps them realize they need to be more sensitive and supportive.

[Pierry Louys]

One way to get back against his sister is making a big poop for her to change heheh