The Girl Who Wanted to Wear Diapers

Chapter 31: Goldilocks

It was barely time for lunch, and I was already bored out of my mind.

I shoved Chester off of my lap as I stood up from the couch. The orange cat gave me an angry meow before sprinting down the hallway and out of sight. I set the book I had been reading down on the couch without bothering to mark my place. I'd have no trouble finding the correct spot to resume later on from memory.

My stomach rumbled as I walked down the hallway.

I hadn't eaten the banana that Mom had left for me in the kitchen for breakfast. Didn't she know that it was basically my least favorite fruit? There was something about its mushy texture that I simply couldn't stomach. Instead, the banana had gone into the trash bag along with the completely soaked pull-up, which hadn't had a single dry spot remaining on it after I had wet it a second time.

In retrospect, that second attempt at peeing in the pull-up – done while laying on my back in bed – probably would have been best reserved for trying with a dry pull-up. However, it hadn't leaked nearly as bad as when I had peed while lying on my stomach, so perhaps there was hope for attempting a wetting in that position sometime again.

The issue I was facing was I had too many experiments I needed to do with the pull-ups and too little time – and too few opportunities – to pull them off. There were two big questions I needed answers to: Were there positions in which I could wet a pull-up that had fewer chances of leaking? And how much could I get away with drinking without risking a leak like last night?

Mom was aware of how many pull-ups were in the package she had purchased for me. Even if she wasn't keeping a close eye on them day-to-day now that they were tucked away in my dresser, if I were to use a bunch of them during the day, it would be very obvious that something was off when I went to ask her to buy me some more a week earlier.

That meant that I was stuck to an allotment of one pull-up per day. It didn't feel like close to enough.

I had gotten what I had wanted, but it hadn't turned out to be like what I had hoped for.

I was finally being given the freedom to stay home alone by myself for this summer break, but that freedom had come with its own costs. I couldn't leave the house. I couldn't have my friends over. I couldn't even make myself a grilled cheese sandwich on the stove to deal with my growling stomach.

That last restriction was a major pain. I had texted Mom an hour ago, asking her what I was supposed to do for lunch for myself. She responded that there was bread and everything I needed to make a sandwich in the refrigerator.

The sight of bland lunchmeat as I opened the fridge door was enough to temper my appetite for the moment. Was that what I had to look forward to all summer long?

It wasn't what I had pictured when I had dreamed of being given the freedom to stay home alone, and in a way, it was almost worse than prior years when I would be stuck home at times with my older sister. At least she usually left me home alone, especially when my friends came over to hang out, which they had actually been allowed to do then. And Grace, of course, had been considered responsible enough to handle kitchen appliances without burning the house down.

My parents had said they would be willing to re-evaluate things, but I didn't know how long it would take for them to reach that decision.

Instead of returning to my book on the couch, I left the kitchen and trudged upstairs to my bedroom.

In the past, having privacy like this might have led me to get out all the old advertisements of pull-ups and diapers I had saved over the years. Now, I couldn't even bring myself to think of them or risk again feeling disappointment over what I had in my dresser drawer instead.