New Year’s Eve meant more to me than the end of one year and the birth of another. It brought me another close encounter with the diapered kind. Okay, it was only my friends Mark and Sean, but that still counts.
Mark and Sean were sleeping over and the three of us had decided to stay up to watch the famous New Year’s Eve Ball descend from the flagpole atop Times Square in New York City.
My brother, who was still recouping from his surgery, was spending most of his time in his bed. My sister had gone to stay at a friend’s and my parents had gone to bed shortly after nine that night. So, the three of us had free run of the house and control of the television.
We still had a couple hours before the ball would drop, so, to keep ourselves awake, we ate popcorn, and drank several sodas while we played a card game called Uno.
Sean was the first to lose his pajamas by proclaiming, “It’s too hot!” and sat there playing Uno wearing only his GoodNite. Mark, quickly followed suit and stripped down to reveal that he was wearing one of his Tena® diapers. I’m not sure if Mark was aware of the fact or not, but it was plain to see by Sean and I that he had already wet. Not wanting to be the only one wearing pajamas, I stripped down to my white Fruit-of-the-Loom’s and socks. I mean it is winter you know!
We had the TV on while we played Uno and every so often, it would switch to the local New Year’s Eve celebrations. What caught my attention was when an announcer said, “And as the clock strikes midnight, Old Father Time will pass the torch to Baby New Year.” I looked up at the TV and standing to the left of the announcer was an old man wearing a white toga and sporting a long white beard. To the right of the announcer was a boy of nine or ten at the most. He wasn’t wearing any clothes, just a big cloth diaper and a white sash that said, “Baby New Year” in gold letters.
“Max. Look, quick!” Mark said.
“I’m looking! I’m looking!” I exclaimed.
“I sure wouldn’t want to be him!” Sean commented.
“Wait a second!” Mark said excitedly, and then crawled closer to the television.
“Mark, get out of the way!” Sean said to me.
He turned, and with an expression of extreme exasperation, he said, “I know that Baby New Year!”
“No you don’t!” I said, “That’s on TV in New York!”
“No it isn’t, that is here!” Sean explained.
“What?” I said to Sean and then asked Mark, “Well who is he?”
But then, the camera did a close up on the new Baby New Year and I rushed to the television, scattering our cards everywhere. “Holy buckets! I know him too!”
“What?” Sean said, sounding as though he didn’t like being left out.
Mark and I were on all fours in front of the TV so Sean couldn’t see, but that didn’t stop him. With a spine snapping leap, Sean jumped onto my back and rested his chin on my right shoulder.
“I… I don’t know his name,” I said getting even closer to the screen.
“I thought you said you knew him?” Sean asked in an accusatorial tone.
I turned my head enough that I could see Sean and said, “I do, but I don’t think I ever got to find out his name.”
The camera man switched to the old man with the beard.
“No, go back to the Baby New Year!” I shouted at the television but it was too late. The camera went to the announcer who said, “Now let’s take you back to the Time Square celebration!”
“Aaarrg! Bring back the Baby you stupid box!” I said to the TV.
“So who was that?” Sean asked Mark.
Mark scooted away from the TV as he said, “He’s in my Judo class.”
“Since when do you take Judo?” I asked, feeling more than a little annoyed.
Mark smiled, “Since yesterday. It was one of my Christmas presents.”
“You didn’t tell me!” I said even more annoyed.
“Yes I did. I said my mom got me self-defense classes.” Mark said, scooping at the cards.
“Oh yeah, you did tell me that.” I relented.
With Sean still on my back, I gave him a horsy-ride backwards before bucking him off. He hit the floor, knees first and laughing.
“Hey, that was fun!” he giggled and then got this really serious look on his face. “Okay, if one of you doesn’t tell me who that Baby was, so help me, I’m going to, to, to… I don’t know what I’m going to do!” Sean warned us and then pointed at me with his pinky-finger, “But you won’t like it!” He then laughed again, but I could tell he was as impatient as I was to find out the boy’s name.
“I met him in the hospital when I had that nasty rash from pulling all those weeds.” I then explained. “He had a broken leg and broken bones, here,” I pointed to my shoulders.
“Collar bone?” Sean offered.
“Yeah, that’s it.” I agreed while giving Sean a playful backhand to the arm.
“You know, he was wearing a diaper even then.” I said.
“I’ll have to find out his name next time I have Judo.” Mark said.
“You better!” I warned him.
We never did get back to playing cards. Mark needed to get changed, so he went to my room while Sean and I sat watching the television with much interest and anticipation. About twenty minutes before midnight, they switched back to the local celebration for about five minutes, but neither the old man, nor Baby New Year returned. When they switched back to Time Square again, Sean told Mark and I to let him know if it came back on. Though he didn’t actually say he was going to go change, we both figured that was where he was going because, when he stood up, his GoodNite was hanging down, making it obvious that he’d really wet it at least once and probably several times.
Sean was gone a good while and when he returned, Mark and I knew why he’d taken so long. He walked back into the family room wearing one of Marks diapers, which was really too big for him but still fit and did the job for which it was intended. I looked to Mark to see if he minded and saw that he was smiling his approval. However, he wasn’t smiling at Sean. He was smiling at me, because he knew I was in heaven right then.
“I didn’t think you would mind if I tried one.” Sean said sheepishly.
“You look smashing!” I said while patting his diapered bottom.
Mark picked up a napkin and jokingly dabbed at the corner of my mouth, “Here man, you’re drooling a bit.” He teased.
“Oh Ha-Ha!” I said, pushing his hand away, but he was right. Seeing Sean in one of Marks diapers was making me salivate.
“Come on, sit down, midnight is only three minutes away.” Mark said to Sean.
I was sitting on the floor with my back against the front of the couch and my legs extended out. Sean did something I hadn’t expected him to do, but somehow I managed to keep my cool and didn’t react… much. Without saying anything, Sean stepped in front of me and sat himself right down on my lap.
When midnight came and went, we sat in front of the TV with unwavering attention. At two minutes after midnight, they switched back to the local celebration just in time to see the old man from last year passing an old-timey looking clock to Baby New Year. When the camera went in for a close up, I exclaimed, “Yes! That’s him! I know it for sure now!”
“I bet he’s cold.” Sean observed, leaning back against my chest and using my shoulder as a pillow.
“I bet he gets beat up at school after holiday break.” Mark commented.
“I bet he is some kind of actor or something.” I added.
The Baby New Year was handed a microphone and he said, “May your year be happy and prosperous!” and then he waved at the camera.
Then, the TV started to jump to different celebrations all over so we stopped watching. Mark switched over to some black and white movie about some orphan kid who mucks up life for hundreds of other orphan kids. It was okay, but kind of sappy.
When Sean shifted on my lap, I whispered into his ear, “Comfy?”
His reply was to snuggle his forehead against my neck. That is how he fell asleep.
I watched the movie while I waited to be sure Sean was totally asleep before motioning to Mark to get his attention. When Mark looked at me, I put a single finger to my lips to indicate that I didn’t want him to make any noise and risk waking up Sean.
Ever so gently, I managed to slide out from under Sean. He sort of slumped over sideways with his head resting on the cushion of the couch.
“Wanna pull a prank on him?” I whispered.
Mark grinned gleefully and nodded, “Like what?”
“I don’t know! Think of something! You’re supposed to be the smart one here!” I said.
“I am?” He said appearing truly surprised by my comment.
“Uh yeah!” I whispered.
Mark beamed as he put a finger to his head like he was really trying to think hard.
“I got it!” he said, just a little too loudly.
I slugged him in the shoulder, “You want to hold it down, you idiot?”
“Idiot? But you just said I was smart!” Mark protested.
“Yeah, well maybe I was wrong! Now shut up and think of a good prank!” I said with a threatening whisper.
“Do you have any more of that stuff that you gave to Damien that made him poop so much?” Mark asked.
“Nah and besides, Sean is sleeping. We’d have to get him to drink it without waking up.” I said.
Then Mark got a look in his eyes that reminded me of Jim Carey when he played The Riddler in Batman.
“What?” I asked with a growing grin.
Mark smiled most evilly as he said, “Got any instant pudding mix?”
That one threw me, “Huh?” I grunted.
“Well, we could carefully pull open the back of his diaper and pore in the instant pudding. As the diaper gets wet, the pudding mix will be activated and it will be like he pooped.” Mark said rubbing his hands together like some mad cartoon bad guy.
Without saying a word, I scrambled to my feet and slipped into the kitchen. Mark followed right behind me. Sure enough, I found two boxes of banana, a box of butterscotch and a box of chocolate instant pudding. I immediately dismissed the banana pudding and held up the other two boxes.
“Butterscotch, or chocolate?” I asked.
“Uh, I think both!” Mark giggled.
“Both?” I said, “I love it! Let’s do it!”
Now, coming up with the idea turned out to be the easy part of the prank, because every time we would pull even the slightest bit on the back of Sean’s diaper, he would act like he was about to wake up. We tried several times and we were both getting frustrated when Sean, suddenly rolled right over and snuggled up against me. I think at first, Mark and my hearts stopped, but we quickly realized that Sean was still out cold. To make it even better, the way he was leaning against me made it so easy for me to reach down with my left arm and hold the back of Sean’s diaper open.
First, Mark poured in the butterscotch pudding so incredibly slowly. Sean didn’t budge or make a sound. Then, in went the chocolate pudding, just as easily and just as slowly.
With both packages of pudding down the back of Sean’s Diaper, I told Mark to take the evidence back to the kitchen and hide it under some of the trash that was already in the trashcan. All the way into the kitchen, Mark was giggling so hard he could hardly walk, which was making me giggle. We both tried so hard to keep our giggles silent, but it was just so difficult to do.
Eventually, Sean rolled off of me and I took the opportunity to get into my sleeping bag. Mark was already in his and still giggling, but each time he’d start giggling again, he’d bury his face in his pillow.
Amazingly, the two of us finally fell asleep too and slept all the way through the night. Unfortunately, we both slept too soundly because, we didn’t hear Sean wake up before us. It was a little after five in the morning when unbeknownst to Mark and I, Sean woke up, discovered what we’d done and then went to take a shower. But that wasn’t the end of it, not even close.
When Sean was done with his shower, he got dressed and then he got even. My dad has always been an early bird. He’s usually up before 5:00 AM. New Year’s morning was no different.
When Sean returned from taking a shower, he found my dad sitting at the kitchen table drinking coffee and reading the morning paper. He told my dad what we’d done to him and I guess Sean was pretty hot about it, and my dad told him that he’d help him get even with us.
While we slept quietly, the two of them went out to the garage, got a couple buckets, and then went outside to fill them up with snow. Now you might remember that we all went to sleep not wearing our pajamas, so all Mark was wearing was his wet diaper and all I was wearing was my underwear and socks. Sean and my dad unzipped our sleeping bags, pulled them open and at the same time, they each dumped a bucket of snow onto us.
I woke up screaming. Mark, on the other hand, woke up, jumped up and ran to my bedroom. I think he was more embarrassed to be seen in his diaper then he was upset that our prank backfired on us.
“That’s what you get for the pudding!” Sean laughed and gave my dad a high-five.
“Daaaaad?” I whined when I realized that he’d helped Sean.
“Maaaaaaax!” Dad imitated my whine.
With my teeth chattering, I ran to the bathroom to take a hot shower but found that Mark was already in there, so I had to settle with jumping into my bed and covering up to try and warm up my body.