✅ Potty Genius [NaNoWriMo 2022]

Fourteen

¿Did your parents say anything?

I don't think they noticed. I don't know how, but they just kept on talking as if nothing had happened. We were watching a movie, so perhaps they weren't thinking about me too much. Maybe they were just remembering who they'd watched this cartoon with before, whether it was their own families or friends they hadn't seen in years.

It was pretty obvious that this cartoon fox was going to be victorious, but it was still an exciting climax as the movie came to an end. I was actually impressed with that, and I mentioned to Mum and Dad that I would have to watch some of the other classic movies at some point. I didn't argue with that. But by the time the end of the credits was scrolling past, Dad turned to me and reminded me that I'd had something important to do around now. He'd seen me glancing at my phone, and guessed that I was eager to send a message to one of my friends, but he diplomatically avoided making any guesses. He just told me that I could go, and so I grabbed the phone and ran up to my room.

I wanted to get changed. That much was a priority. But somehow, once I had privacy again, I knew that I couldn't sort out my clothes until I had answered the questions on my phone screen. I had wet my diaper; it was soaked and needed changing; and my pants and the furniture were still dry.

===> 𝙰𝚠𝚠, 𝚋𝚊𝚋𝚢 𝙰𝚍𝚛𝚒𝚌𝚊 𝚑𝚊𝚍 𝚊 𝚕𝚒𝚝𝚝𝚕𝚎 𝚊𝚌𝚌𝚒𝚍𝚎𝚗𝚝? 𝙳𝚘𝚗'𝚝 𝚠𝚘𝚛𝚛𝚢, 𝚜𝚠𝚎𝚎𝚝𝚒𝚎. 𝙸𝚝'𝚜 𝚗𝚘𝚝 𝚊 𝚋𝚒𝚐 𝚍𝚎𝚊𝚕, 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚒𝚝 𝚑𝚊𝚙𝚙𝚎𝚗𝚜 𝚝𝚘 𝚎𝚟𝚎𝚛𝚢𝚘𝚗𝚎. 𝚃𝚑𝚊𝚝'𝚜 𝚠𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝚢𝚘𝚞𝚛 𝚍𝚒𝚊𝚙𝚎𝚛𝚜 𝚊𝚛𝚎 𝚏𝚘𝚛, 𝚜𝚘 𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚍𝚘𝚗'𝚝 𝚑𝚊𝚟𝚎 𝚝𝚘 𝚠𝚘𝚛𝚛𝚢 𝚊𝚋𝚘𝚞𝚝 𝚎𝚟𝚎𝚛𝚢 𝚕𝚒𝚝𝚝𝚕𝚎 𝚊𝚌𝚌𝚒𝚍𝚎𝚗𝚝.

I blushed furiously at the message on the screen. It was only because of this stupid app that I had wet myself. It was because of the arbitrary design choices, and the stupid challenge, not any failure on my part. But I still felt embarrassed about not being able to outwit the thing. Perhaps I should have set my reminder a little earlier, or told my parents that I was waiting for a phone call from somebody who ran a student society at the university or something... I was sure that if I'd thought about it before the movie, I could have come up with something that would make them let me return to my room briefly towards the end.

In any case, I could take the diaper off now, so that was a win of sorts. The diaper change screen came up after the accident report; and I selected that I had cleaned myself up with baby wipes, and was taking the soaked diaper off. There was a prompt there to select what kind of diaper I was wearing now, with only one option on it, but I didn't choose anything. I didn't need to wear diapers.

==> 𝙰𝚍𝚛𝚒𝚌𝚊 𝚒𝚜 𝚜𝚝𝚒𝚕𝚕 𝚒𝚗 𝚜𝚝𝚊𝚐𝚎 𝙸 𝚙𝚘𝚝𝚝𝚢 𝚝𝚛𝚊𝚒𝚗𝚒𝚗𝚐, 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚌𝚊𝚗𝚗𝚘𝚝 𝚛𝚎𝚏𝚞𝚜𝚎 𝚍𝚒𝚊𝚙𝚎𝚛𝚜 𝚏𝚘𝚕𝚕𝚘𝚠𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚊𝚗 𝚊𝚌𝚌𝚒𝚍𝚎𝚗𝚝. 𝚁𝚎𝚚𝚞𝚎𝚜𝚝 𝚊 𝚙𝚊𝚛𝚎𝚗𝚝𝚊𝚕 𝚘𝚟𝚎𝚛𝚛𝚒𝚍𝚎?

I wondered what that would mean. Could I just tell it as the adult on the device that I didn't need to wear diapers again? But as soon as I tapped it, the app permissions thing came up; the app store asking if I wanted to allow Potty Genius to access the contact details of my family. No way was I ever doing that; I cancelled that screen.

> 𝚆𝙴𝙰𝚁 𝙳𝙸𝙰𝙿𝙴𝚁 <

"That's not fair!" I wailed, as I started to pull on a second Allnight. But it seemed there was nothing I could do about it, and I was sure that I would be allowed to change again in the morning.

¿Was there a problem disposing of diapers?

I didn't even think about that. I mean, it should have occurred to me, but I just put them in the bin in my bathroom, and then it was out of sight, out of mind. I knew the bin needed emptying more often when the app told me to wear diapers; they were taking up space there even if I didn't use them. But it's not like my parents were going to go through my trash, is it? The bathroom bin can be gross enough anyway, and I emptied it myself after that first time, so I don't think there's any chance they would have noticed.

I could take my diaper off in the morning, anyhow. I just selected that I was changing because I'd worn it overnight and it was the next day, and it allowed me to change to wearing no diaper. And when I was back to feeling like my life was under my control, I could stop thinking so much about that app.

¿Did the challenges get tougher?

They weren't actually that bad. The 'Learning the Ropes' ones were mostly what you might expect, going through all the different screens the app had to offer and trying out the different features. The next day after the diaper-wearing challenge was just setting myself a reminder. After that, I had to set a potty timer for an hour, which was a bit of a pain because it seemed the best I could do was satting it for sixty to seventy-seven minutes, if I wanted to keep my self-decided ninety percent chance of the timer actually working. And I must have been very lucky, because it always succeeded. Although that might have been because I started setting the timers to a longer interval, giving myself five or ten minutes sitting on the potty so there was a better chance of it working, and giving myself a little more time to play those silly mobile games.

It was actually kind of nice, having an unavoidable break from whatever was demanding my attention. Sometimes, of course, I'd set the timer as short as I could if my family were around, or if there was something I needed to do. But I never let the success chance go below ninety percent.

The challenges showed me something else as well. The app's main menu showed a whole bunch of icons for different things, but they were arranged like pictures on the wall of a little cartoon house. I thought that was just a visual gimmick, but then the challenge told me that I could swipe left to see the rest of the house. There was another screen like a trophy room, where I could see the challenges I had already completed, and then there was a blank screen that was just an empty room, with a little pixelated girl that was clearly supposed to be me running around. I could tap on her to make her look like me, which was the first challenge, but then I saw that there were minigames to win 'coins' as well, so I could dress up Baby Adrica, and even decorate her room.

Here was the little virtual pet thing I'd expected; and I could even watch the little sprite going to the bathroom when I did. I thought that was a silly thing, but at least it wasn't embarrassing like some of the challenges could easily have been. I got into the habit of changing the little baby's clothes when I ran out of lives on Bubble Hunt Magnate, or when the incessant ads for Candy Wizard Magnate were getting on my nerves.

I could give the little sprite a badge too. There were a couple of default ones, showing a teddy, a flower, and a smiling face. And then some that I'd 'earned' by doing particular things. So far I'd earned a raincloud for having an accident, a diaper for wearing and wetting a diaper. I thought about using those when I was dressing Baby Adrica, but quickly realised that would probably be a bad idea. Some instinct warned me that once I started wearing badges, my life was going to slip out of my control in a new way. And there was no way I would let that happen.

So, I'd done a few challenges, and there was nothing particularly troublesome until it was time to visit Dr Abbott on Monday morning.