The following day, which was Saturday, I had met up with Sean at the park as we had planned. My rash hadn’t totally cleared up yet but I was well enough that I was able to talk my mom into letting me go outside for a while.
When I arrived at the park, Sean was already there. He confessed that he’d been there since first light. He was flying a remote controlled blimp, and when he saw me coming, he let loose the controls to wave and nearly sent the thing floating into a tree.
We hung out at the park for over an hour and never once did the subject of diapers or wetting come up, even though I was thinking about them the entire time. Much to my anguish, and despite my best efforts, I couldn’t figure out if he was wearing anything more than underwear under his pants.
When all of the battery packs for the blimp were drained, Sean asked if I would like to come to his house. I tried not to seem too eager, so I looked at my watch and acted like I was checking the time before I agreed.
Sean handed me a red plastic tank with a futuristic looking brass valve at the top and a sticker on the side that read, ‘HELIUM’. It was heavier than it looked and I guessed it had to be heavy to keep from floating away when full of helium. I also carried the remote control while he lugged the blimp. It wasn’t until we reached his house and he let the blimp go that I noticed it didn’t weigh anything at all. Now, if Mark had pulled something like that on me, I would have pounced on him, pinned him to the floor and tickled him until he cried uncle, or until he wet himself, whichever came second.
I must have appeared to be mildly disgusted because Sean said to me, “Hey you are bigger than me, and besides, I carried that thing all the way to the park when it was still full!”
“Still full?” I smiled and continued, “But it wouldn’t have weighted hardly anything when full of helium!”
Sean smiled, shrugged his shoulders and laughed, “What can I say?”
I laughed as I said, “Uhuh, I see how you are now!” and let it pass with no further comment, but I made a mental note not to fall for something like that again.
“Want to see my room?” he asked, “I have my own TV and computer.”
“Wow, you lucky dog!” I commented.
Sean laughed more than I thought he should just then, but then he explained why, “I have a dog named Lucky.”
“No way!” I said in disbelief.
“Yes way!” He assured me, “He’s out back; I’ll show you.”
There was a door inside the garage that led into the house, just the same as at my home. Sean stopped halfway into the house. I hadn’t been paying attention and walked right into the back of him.
“Watch it!” he laughed.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean…” I started to say.
“Sokay,” he said blending his words into one. I think he meant to say “It’s okay”.
“Need to kick off your shoes;” He said, “not allow shoes on the carpet.” For a brief instant my brain flashed back to my dream last night and I giggled to myself.
Beside the door that led from the garage to the inside of the house was a tall, narrow set of metal wire shelves with several pairs of assorted shoes. Sean and I added our shoes to the collection and then went into the house.
His house was spotless and sparsely decorated. I could tell right off the bat that at least one or maybe even both of his parents were neat freaks. He led me through the dining room, which looked as though it had never been used before. Without opening the sliding glass door, Sean pulled back the white shear fabric curtain and tapped on the glass with his knuckle.
You could have knocked me over with a feather when I saw his dog. Big doesn’t come close to describing it! “I’m sorry, that’s not a dog! That’s a fat horse!”
Not missing a beat Sean replied, “Would you believe he’s just a puppy?”
“No!” I answered.
“Good, ’cause he’s older than me!” Sean laughed.
Then, I asked the dumbest question, “Is he allowed in the house?”
Sean laughed again, “Yeah, but then my dad would use my head for batting practice.”
“What kind of dog is that?” I asked.
“Good old American mutt,” Sean said with an odd sense of pride.
I chuckled, “Must have some horse, or buffalo, or maybe both in him.”
“Is there a reason you named him Lucky?” I asked.
Sean closed the curtains again and was careful to make sure each pleat was perfect, “I didn’t name him that. He was my real dad’s dog before I was born.”
It suddenly dawned on me how quiet it was inside the house, “Is anyone else home?”
“Nope, mom’s working again this weekend and my step-dad is in Detroit for a convention.”
I wasn’t really interested, but to keep the conversation going, I asked him, “What kind of convention?”
Sean was leading me further into the house as he answered, “Don’t know. Something to do with work, I think.”
Just as expected, the living room furnishings were sparse and totally dust free.
Sometimes, things get said that in retrospect would have been better if they never were said and my next comment was one of those times, “How does your mom keep this place so clean?”
“She doesn’t, my step-dad does.” And I knew instantly by the tone of his voice that I’d just stepped on a landmine. I didn’t pursue it any further but the mood in the air had become noticeably strained.
He led me down an L-shaped hallway to a closed door with a red stop sign on the outside. It was smaller than a real stop sign and below the word ‘STOP’, it read…
STOP
DISASTER AREA AHEAD
(PROCEED AT YOUR OWN RISK)
I received the second shock for the day when he opened the door and said, “And this is my room!”
When I saw his room, I could hear my mother’s voice in my head as if she were standing right behind me. “Would you look at this mess? This is the worst looking pigsty I have ever seen! How someone could live in this filth is beyond me?”
“Whhhhooooaaaa!” I gasped.
As though it were not completely obvious, Sean turned and looked at me, “What?”
“Look at your room?” I exclaimed.
“What’s wrong with it?” he asked.
I couldn’t stop myself from asking, “Your mom and dad don’t mind your room being this messy?”
“I like it like this,” He said climbing over his bed to the other side of the room.
“My mother would slaughter me if my room ever got this bad.” I commented and then the smell hit me. It was as through someone had taken the hose of a vacuum, held it against my face, flipped the switch to ON and sucked the air right out of me. The space reeked of stale urine. Exactly what you would expect from a bed-wetter. So, why was I caught off guard? I coughed, gagged and threw-up a little in the back of my throat. I had to turn away to catch my breath and I was back down the hallway before I could breathe again.
“Come in, I want to show you something.” Sean called out.
“He must not have seen me nearly blow chunks,” I thought to myself.
I turned and started back toward his room, but when I caught a second whiff of the ammonia laced air, I stopped moving and breathing.
There was a clatter from inside his room, “What did I do with that?” and something crashed, “Nope not there!”
Several things were going through my mind at the same time. Even though he is younger than me, I wanted so much to be friends with Sean and I didn’t want to hurt his feelings, but I didn’t think I could go into his room without puking. I turned my back to his room, took a deep breath, held it and went into his bedroom.
The first thing I noticed was the large, yellow and brown pee stain on his sheet less mattress. The second thing I noticed was the pile of used GoodNites that nearly buried an odd looking green pail. With a closer look, I saw that on the outside of the pail, in raised letters were two words, Diaper Genie.
Sean was nowhere in sight but I could hear him, “Where is it?” his voice came from under the bed, “I know it’s here somewhere!” he continued mumbling as random objects would be flung from under the bed and land on a pile somewhere else in the room.
With a triumphant cry, he announced, “Ah-ha! Found the little bugger! Eeeew, it has spider boogers all over it!”
When something touched my foot, I leapt up and squealed, “Yikes! What was that?”
“It’s just me!” Sean laughed and I looked down to see his head and a single arm sticking out from under the bed.
“Man, you scared the crap out of me!” I shot back without thinking and expended what little oxygen my lungs still contained.
“Take my hand and pull me out!” Sean said.
I did the best I could to breath as little as possible while reaching down to try to extract him from under his bed.
“What happened to your shirt?” I asked when I saw that he was now naked from the waist up. Without his shirt, he looked even younger. His chest and arms were completely undeveloped and void of any outward signs of puberty. And then I saw it sticking out of the waistband of his pants, he was wearing a GoodNite! It was unmistakable and if there had been any untainted oxygen in the room I probably would have started hyperventilating on the spot.
“Got caught on something under there so I slipped out of it.” He said plopping down on his bed.
A stuffed bear had been resting on the other side of the mattress, but when Sean plopped down, the bear went sailing into the ammonia laced air and then disappeared into the pile of clothes and toys that littered the floor.
I was breathing very shallowly through my mouth, but was feeling like I needed to get out of there fast and get some fresh air. In the end, I couldn’t take it anymore and asked, “Mind if I open the window?”
“You hot?” he asked, “Then just take off your shirt.”
That put a kink into my feeble attempt to get some fresh air without hurting his feelings, but then I said, “I better not, my rash isn’t totally gone yet.”
“Oh yeah, I forgot!” he said while fumbling with some little mechanical device. “Sure, go ahead, but it might stink a bit, Lucky poops mountains out there.”
I nearly said something back but I decided I’d risk it and stepped over several scattered items to get to the window.
He was right, the air coming in the window didn’t smell like roses but it was a far cry better than the stench inside. With semi-fresh air spilling in, I was able to think clearly again.
“Whatcha got there?” I asked while making my way over to where he sat on the bed.
“It’s a robot I invented.” He answered and laid it on the edge of the nightstand. Then he pressed a blue button on top of it.
The robot sprang to life, BEEP, CLICK, BEEP, CLICK, BEEP, CLICK. “Ah man, I never can get it to walk right.” He groaned.
“What’s it supposed to do?” I asked stepping over a Tonka truck to get a closer look.
“That clicking sound is the gears skipping,” he said.
“Well it’s still pretty cool.” I said honestly.
“Yeah! Real cool, but thanks anyway. Oh well, I’ll figure it out one day.” Sean swept up the little robot and tossed it over his shoulder before adding, “Hey, want to play a board game? I have loads of them!” He sprang from the bed and leapt past me, nearly knocking me into the pile of used GoodNites.
He pulled open his closet door, which was a chore, given all the crap that was piled in front of it, and I couldn’t believe my eyes. Sitting on a shelf, about four feet above the floor, were three unopened packages of GoodNites and one partially full package along with a large white tub with a blue lid and large blue lettering, ‘DIAPER BUTTER’.
Sean also had his back to me and I could see the GoodNite he was wearing was sticking up about an inch or more from the back of his pants. If there had been any doubts before, when I saw the small red rectangle tag with the small red stars, I was absolutely curtain that he was wearing a GoodNite.
“He must wet during the daytime too, just like Mark!” I thought to myself.
“You ok?” Sean asked holding out a stack of board games.
“Uh, huh?” I answered.
“You look like you’ve just seen ‘Nearly Headless Nick!’” Sean commented, and the reference to one of my favorite Harry Potter characters was enough to snap me out of it.
“What?” Oh sorry… Uh, hey you like Harry Potter too?” I asked trying to make believe I hadn’t just been standing there gawking at his anti-bedwetting supplies.
He dropped the board games at my feet, “Are you kidding? I have read every one of the books and I even have the English versions too. Come on, I’ll show you!” Before I had a chance to respond, he grabbed my hand and lead me out of his room.
I still can’t believe the condition of his room; even after he lead me to their den and showed me his collection of hardback Harry Potter books. I could still smell the pee. It had permeated my nostrils, my clothes and much to my personal disbelief; I was more than a little aroused.
“See, I even have the special school books, look!” he pulled the two books, “Quidditch Through The Ages is so cool, but I like Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them soooooo muuuch beeeeettttterrrrr.” He said drawing out his words to show his enthusiasm.
“Wow, I didn’t know they had the school books in hard cover.” I said.
“Want to see the one I made for school?” he asked with even more excitement, “Wait right here!”
I was glad when he told me to wait in the den, when he’d started moving for the door, I was momentarily concerned that he was going to make me go back to his room again.
I was pleasantly shocked when he returned with the coolest looking book I’d ever seen, “Sean! This looks exactly like the Monster Book of Monsters from the movie!”
“I know! My mom helped me make it!” he said with pride.
“No, I mean it Sean! This is great!” I said turning the book carefully to examine every detail.
“Thanks! Hey, would you like to have it?” he asked.
Stunned would be a good word to describe my state of mind at that moment.
“Oh wow, no way Sean! I couldn’t even think of taking something like this. It must have taken you and your mom ages to make it.”
“Really, I want you to have it!” he said with a grin that stretched from ear to ear.
I tried several times to make him understand that I couldn’t take it, but in the end, he made me take it. “Ok, but only on one condition… It is still yours. I’m just going to keep it at my house for you.”
From that moment on, the two of us were the best of friends. We spent the rest of the day together playing board games, thankfully not in his room. Sean had let me use the phone to call home twice during the day to check in. Later that day he and I were in his room, strange as it might seem, I was getting use to the smell, we were watching videos on his computer that he had downloaded from the internet. His mother came home around six in the evening and neither one of us knew it had gotten so late.
At first, she didn’t seem to like the idea that Sean had a friend my age, but she soon warmed up to me. She invited me to stay for supper, which I accepted. We had homemade pork chops, baked potatoes and roasted corn on the cob. As if that wasn’t enough to eat, after supper, the two of us had Coconut Cream pie while his mom put the dirty dishes into the dishwasher and cleaned up the kitchen. After we had woofed down the pie, Sean had left me alone in the kitchen with his mother for a few minute. I suspected he had gone to change into a dry GoodNite. At least that was what I imagined he was doing.
Sean’s mom told me that since they moved here, Sean was having a hard time making new friends and she also said that she hoped that Sean and I would become good friends. Little did she know that it would take an act of God to keep me away from Sean and his wetting problem?
The following day, I introduced Sean to Mark, and in time, their parents eventually met each other. Though I never slept over at Sean’s house, he has slept at mine many, many times and on several occasions, the three of us have spent the night together either at Marks home or my own.