As I stood there staring at all those GoodNites, I think my heart stopped beating. Then I spotted something residing at the very bottom of the armoire. Below all those GoodNites was, what appeared to be, a large green thermos. No kidding, it looked like someone had left me a family sized green thermos and by the look of it, I was guessing it could hold at least three gallons of bug juice. I eventually figured out, that it wasn’t a thermos at all, but a container for disposing of used diapers; or in this case, used GoodNites.
Okay, curiosity got the better of me and I just had to figure out why there was a big thermos inside a cabinet filled with scores upon scores of GoodNites. I dragged the container out of the armoire and quickly figured out, what it really was and it sure wasn’t a thermos. Once I figured out what it was for and how it worked, I actually found the big green container down right cool. I’m talking like brand new surf board cool here! You see, when you have a wet diaper, you roll it into a ball like the one I’d seen John do when we were on the road. First you lift the clear plastic lid from the top, drop the rolled up diaper in, close the lid, give it half a turn clockwise and the diaper is sealed inside a white plastic bag, so that the smells can’t get out. Epically cool, huh? You know something? I bet the next thing they come up with, will be self-cleaning diapers!
Once my curiosity had been satisfied, I returned the… at the time I didn’t know what to call it, so I just called it the big green thermos, but later I took to calling it the diaper pail. Anyway, I returned the diaper pail to the bottom of the armoire and just stood there butt naked, staring at all those GoodNites. It simply baffled me why there were so many of them. I mean, there is no way that I could use that many GoodNites in my lifetime. Okay, so I am exaggerating a bit here, but come on! There were just so many! How else was I supposed to react to such a find, than complete dismaying?
When the shock of the find had, for the most part, worn off, I returned to my original idea that I needed something to wear, so that I could go find my mom and apologize properly.
For the briefest of moments, and I’m talking nanoseconds here, the thought flashed in my mind, that I could try to put on one of the GoodNites. At least wearing a diaper, I wouldn’t be naked anymore and then I could go find my clothes or something else to wear. However, no sooner had the thought occurred then it was immediately expelled from my mind.
Then something else occurred to me. The diaper that Mom had dropped on the bathroom floor was still lying on the bathroom floor.
I raced back to the bathroom only to find that when the diaper fell it had been so bloated that it had burst and this gross jelly like substance had spilled out. I did my best to clean up the jelly using the diaper without actually touching the gross stuff. I then carefully crumpled diaper so as not to spill any more of the jelly and returned to the open armoire. It was cold now; very cold and felt weird in my hands. Sort of like holding a water balloon, while at the same time nothing like a water balloon. In some kind of perverted way, I enjoyed wadding the diaper into a sad resemblance of a ball, so that I could drop it into the big green diaper pail. Something totally awesome happened when I closed the clear plastic lid and gave it a quarter turn clock wise. The container made a sort of soft humming sound and I heard a sound, I can only compare to the sound of opening a brand new bag of potato chips. When the container had gone quiet again, I lifted the clear lid and looked down inside, but I couldn’t tell what had made the sound. Later I found out that, what I had heard was the container automatically sealing the plastic around the used diaper, so that when the container was emptied, the contents resembled a chain of diaper balls, linked together like spherical sausages.
Maybe I am just simple minded, but I found the diaper pail completely fascinating. I get a kick out of the way it seals each diaper.
So there I was, once again, staring at the endless bounty of GoodNites, when I realized just how stupid I really am!
“Oh my goodness Alvin!” I said angrily to myself, “Why don’t you just get another towel out of the bathroom vanity cabinet?” For good measure, I thumped myself in the forehead for being so dumb! And I wasn’t gentle about it at all. I honestly made myself see stars.
For the record, I found plenty of fresh, fluffy, white towels, washcloths and hand towels under the sink. I tell you that if I didn’t have rocks for brains, I wouldn’t have brains at all.