Jim wandered down the baby supplies aisle,

past the diapers,

wipes,

food, and formula.

Where were the toys?

True, he had seen some stuff in the toy section of the store,

but he wasn’t about to spend that kind of money on something some kid would forget about in a month and never remember.

He briefly thought about the pet aisle and wondered if a two-year-old would know the difference between a dog toy and a kid’s toy.

More importantly, would the kid’s mom know?

“Jim?” a familiar voice called out.

Jim turned his head and at the other end of the aisle was a short and spindly man with scraggly hair and tuft of chin hair that belonged on a mystery-solving stoner with a talking dog.

“Dale?” Jim called back.

“Jim!” Dale called back.

“Dale!”

“Jim!”

The two ran and hugged each other

as if they were long-lost war buddies who thought the other hadn’t made it home.

It hadn’t even been a week since they’d last seen each other.

Their hug broke down into raucous laughter as they slapped each other on the back.

Their own “bromance” had become a self-sustaining joke long ago.

“One day I hope you love me like that,”

Lisa would often quip to Jim when he went out for a night on the town with his friends.”

“Dude,” Jim said, “fancy seeing you here.”

“I know, right?” Dale agreed. “What are you up –?”

“Dale? Jim?” A third voice rang out.

Dale and Jim looked and saw him.

He was half a head taller than either of them

but weighed almost as much as the two of them combined.

He had the gut to prove it and the complete lack of facial hair to hide his multiple chins didn’t have a slimming effect either.

“Steve!” Jim and Dale shouted out in unison.

And once again, the ritual repeated itself, this time in a massive group hug with Steve purposefully trying to bear hug and squeeze the air out of his friends.

This is how it had always been for the three of them,

or at least that’s how it felt.

They had met years ago in middle school,

bonded, and had never really looked back.

They had managed to be roommates back in college,

traveled the world a bit in their mid-twenties

, and were even each other’s best men , at their respective weddings.

Even now with jobs and wives and responsibilities,

they managed to meet for drinks at least once a week.

“So, no joke, what are you guys doing here?” Jim asked.

“Mindy sent me to get some diapers,” Steve shrugged.

Jim and Dale exchanged looks.

“Dude…” Dale said.

“Like, are you…?” he let the question hang in the air.

“What?!” Steve frowned,

“No! God no!

We’re not pregnant…”

“Pregnant?” Jim smirked.

“I was gonna ask if you were pissing yourself or something.

But if that’s the case,”

he gave Steve’s belly a playful poke,

“you might want to go down an aisle or two.

I don’t think any of this stuff will fit you.”

Jim was rewarded for his sophomoric humor with Steven’s big meaty hand smacking him on the head

just hard enough to remind him that Steve could hit like a truck when he wanted to.

It had been well over a decade since Steve had been a linebacker for the high school football team,

but that didn’t mean he didn’t remember how to ring someone’s bell.

“Worth it,” Jim said as he instinctively rubbed the back of his head.

“But yeah,” Steve ignored Jim,

“Mindy’s dragging me to a baby shower this afternoon.

Figured diapers were a safe bet for a present.”

“Heh,” Dale said, “thought you’d already won the dad race or something.”

“Nah,” Steve shook his head. “Nothing like that.”

“You sure?” Jim asked. “You know the lady?

What if this baby shower is how you find out that you’ve won?”

“If you can call that winning,” Dale added

“Congratulations, dude, you win eighteen years of responsibility!”

This was another curious quirk of their relationship,

most everything was framed as a competition of some sort.

Who could drink more,

who could eat more,

who could stay up watching bad movies longer,

who had the highest paying job,

who had the nicest house;

they were always friendly competitions, but they were competitions all the same.

“No, I’m pretty sure this isn’t how I find out,” Steve replied.

“Pregnant women don’t go buying more tampons three days ago.”

That elicited an immature shudder of revulsion from all three of them.

“’Sides,” Steve added,

“I don’t need to win the Dad race.

I already beat you guys in the marriage race.”

“Which is bullshit,” Jim countered, still grinning,

“because I beat you in the getting engaged race.”

“By a week,” Steve replied.

“It’s not my fault that Mindy and I got our wedding planned and booked before you and Lisa.”

“Pffft,” Jim scoffed,

“As if you had anything to do with the planning.”

“Hey, I helped!” Steve said, seeming somewhat offended.

Jim crossed his arms and cocked his head to the side in a smug expression.

“Uh-huh,” Jim said. “and when I was a kid I used to ‘help’ my mom lick the cake batter out of the bowl.

I was a real helper, same as you.”

Steve’s nose started to crinkle up into a snarl,

one of the few signs that he was getting truly angry.

“Guys, guys, guys,” Dale interjected. “I think you’re both missing the point.

I won the competition for the hottest wife.”

Dale smiled wide and toothy.

Both Jim and Steve’s demeanor’s instantly softened.

They looked at each other, then at Dale, then back to each other.

“Really, dude?” Jim snorted derisively.

“You think Heather is hotter than either Lisa or Mindy?”

“Uh…yeah?” Dale said.

Now it was his turn to get defensive.

“I mean, she’s okay…I guess…” Steve shrugged.

“If you’re into that sort of thing.”

“What do you mean ‘that sort of thing’?!” Dale huffed.

“No, no, no, no,” Jim bit his lower lip in an attempt to hide a shit eating grin.

Dale’s buttons were so easy to push sometimes.

“Heather is a really nice, cool person….”

And he let the phrase just hang in the air.

“But…?” Dale pressed, his toes curling in his sandals.

“Huh?” Jim pretended to not understand.

“Nothing. She’s just a really nice and cool person.”

“Hey, little buddy,” Steve placed his hand condescendingly on Dale’s shoulder,

“the important thing is that she’s attractive to you.”

“Oh you sons of…!” Dale puffed.

He swatted away Steve’s hand.

He wasn’t truly angry;

not really,

he knew a rib when he heard one,

but it was still frustrating when you couldn’t think of a good comeback.

“Heeeeeeey!” Jim exaggerated,

“That’s too far, Steve. Way too far!

All of our wives are attractive.”

He turned to Dale.

“Dale, I swear to you that if Lisa ever dies before me, I’ll do it with Heather; right in front of you if you want,

just so you know I’m telling the truth.”

There was an intense silence as the three stared each other down.

Then, they all burst into raucous laughter and the tension evaporated from the baby aisle in an instant.

“There is no good way out of this, guys,”

Jim laughed into his hand,

“so let’s just awkwardly change the subject.”

“Yeah, there was no way to win that,” Dale agreed.

“It’s not a competition.”

“So yeah,” Steve chuckled into a sigh,

“last-minute baby shower gift.

What are you jackasses doing here?”

“Two-year-old birthday party,” Jim answered.

“One of Lisa’s work friends got invited and I’m being dragged along. Looking for a toy,” he added.

“Weeeeeird…!” Dale said.

“Heather talked me into going to this christening for some work friend of hers. We’re not even religious.”

“Why is that weird?” Steve asked.

“All three of our wives are having us do baby stuff today,” Dale said.

“That’s kind of a weird coincidence, doncha think?”

“Dude,” Steve said, “Our wives are getting the fever…”

“Ugh,” Dale groaned, “we might all win that ‘Who’s a dad’ competition at the same time.”

“Dude, it’s not a competition,” Jim said.

“Besides, Lisa’s not getting the fever today. I practically guarantee it.”

“Why not?” his friends asked.

“You want a woman to get baby fever,” Jim explained,

“you take them to a baby shower, or a christening, or something like that.

When the kid is still crawling and cute and cuddly or not born,

it seems so romantic.”

“Uh-huh,” Dale and Steve nodded,

thinking about their own not-so-distant futures.

“But if you want to turn a lady off of having kids,” Jim continued,

“have them hang around a bunch of toddlers.

The whining,

the crying,

the snot,

they can’t make up their damn minds;

complete turn off.”

“Okay then,” Dale said. “Then you mean you’re not getting it tonight.”

“What?!” Jim said.

“They get the baby fever,” Dale said,

“they want to make babies.

You know where babies come from, right Jim?”

“Do you want me to tell him?” Steve nudged Dale.

“No,” Dale joked, “that’s not our place.

But you and Lisa need to have a long talk when you get home.

 

“Whoa,” Jim said. “I’m totally doing it tonight.

I’m so smooth,

Lisa won’t be able to resist,

she won’t want kids yet.

Just you guys watch.”

“What is it with him and watching today?” Steve said.

“Ha-ha.” Jim shook his head.

“Well I got a party to get to,” he reached for a pack of Huggies, size 5.

“See you guys later.”

“Whoah!” Dale said.

“What are you doing, man?”

“I’m getting my present for the party,” Jim cocked an eyebrow. “Why?”

“Dude,” Steve said, “that works for a baby shower,

but that kid already has diapers.”

“Besides,” Dale added, “don’t kids start potty training at two?

Wouldn’t it be more appropriate to get a potty or something?

At least some Pull-Ups?”

“Well he’s gonna need more,” Jim defended his decision.

“And it’s not like they’re gonna start potty training right at the birthday party.

Most kids are closer to three when they start training.”

“Fair,” Steve shrugged, grabbing his own package of Huggies, size 1, for the baby shower.

“And isn’t giving a two year old a potty a little bit like giving the kid homework or like giving your wife a vacuum cleaner?”

Jim didn’t really care or believe what he was saying, he just liked arguing and wanted to win.

Sometimes it was a competition. “Happy Birthday, kid!” Jim mocked,

“Now here’s a chore for you.”

“Point taken,” Dale said reaching for his own gift package of Huggies, size 3.

He looked at the duo of his friends, now staring at him like he was the biggest hypocrite on earth.

“Really?” Steve and Jim both asked.

“Hey,” Dale said,

“it’s not like I know what to get a kid for a christening, either

. Might as well go for the safe bet.”

And so each one took their package of Huggies and went home,

diapers in tow to their waiting wives.

But as each man stepped across the threshold of their home, their world went black…

The three men came to consciousness quite suddenly.

The last thing each of them remembered was coming home,

a cheap but practical baby gift in hand and opening the door,

and then, as if reality itself had had a stroke, they were here.

And more disturbing to each of them, in turn,

was that they each had the distinct impression of having missed time.

It was difficult to describe, really.

It didn’t have the groggy feel of slowly waking up from a long sleep

or the wooziness of waking up from a nasty hit on the head.

It was more like they had been “on” one moment, switched “off” as soon as they had gotten home,

and now who knows how much time had passed and they were back “on” again.

They existed, they ceased to exist, and they existed again.

They had been dead, now they weren’t.

They were dead…

“The….?”

Jim stopped himself from talking, his voice raw and caught in his throat.

He took a few more deep breaths, cleared his throat and finished,

“…hell?”

He looked to his left and his right,

Dale and Steve were beside him on the floor.

They were on the floor.

All three of them were blinking and turning their heads,

confused as to what was going on.

“ was…” Dale coughed. “… was that?”

“No idea,” Steve grunted.

“I feel like I’ve got a two-ton weight on my shoulders though.”

“Where are we?” Jim asked.

He sat up, the light rustling crinkle he heard not registering to his conscious mind as anything other than the slight creek of floorboards under the old carpet.

Dale sat up too,

rubbing his eyes,

his vision still blurred from whatever drug was still in his system.

It had to be a drug doing this.

He didn’t notice the sounds his movement was making either.

Steven didn’t even think to sit up.

He rolled over to his belly instead,

lifting his head up oh so slightly off the ground to get a look around;

but he would be forgiven for that soon enough.

The room was painted pastel blue- baby boy blue- and pictures of Looney Tunes paraded around the top trim of the wall.

They were baby Looney Tunes, Dale noted.

Bugs, Daffy, Sylvester,

Porky; the whole gang.

They were playing with blocks,

or lying on their backs,

crawling after a bouncing ball,

or taking naps.

Stereotypical snapshot stuff you put as the sample pictures in frames.

Baby stuff.

You knew they were the “baby” Looney Tunes because each and every one of them had a plain, puffy white diaper wrapped around their bums, and nothing else.

It wasn’t until he rubbed his eyes and took a second look that Dale noticed that even though they were definitely wearing puffy white diapers, those weren’t the “baby” Looney Tunes.

A full grown, but padded Sylvester cuddled with a stuffed Tweety Bird.

Bugs Bunny, also diapered, walked with stiff legs, and an awkward gate with arms flailing, a tiny carrot in his mouth like a pacifier.

Dale even noticed a scene of Porky Pig getting his ass dusted with baby powder by Granny,

what could only be a fresh diaper laid beneath him as Granny hoisted his legs into the air with one hand and applied powder with the other.

“Is that a crib?” Steve asked from his position on the floor.

“It’s huge!” Indeed it was.

Any one of them could have fit into the bed with the wooden bars.

The entire room, each realized as they took in their surroundings,

had the appearance of a nursery for oversized infants.

The giant crib was directly behind them.

To their right was a dresser with a concave,

cradling changing mat so thick it might as well have been an air mattress.

A colossal wooden box marked “Toys” was to their left,

and directly in front of them was a small walk-in closet.

Jim stood up off the floor and walked to the closet.

As he looked through the clothes he saw rows of shirts and shorts decorated with cartoon characters like Spongebob Squarepants and Jake and the Neverland Pirates.

In the back he saw a couple of boxes of Huggies lying against the wall.

The only thing that struck Jim as odd was that all of the clothes seemed big considering how they were decorated.

Some of the shirts looked like they could even fit him.

Jim stepped out of the closet.

“Jim,” Steve called from his spot on the floor.

Something sounded off about Steve like something was bothering him;

“Just a second, bro,” Jim said sliding the closet door closed.

He looked at the closet door, and then turned his head to the right, where there as a door leading out of the room.

Then Jim’s spatial awareness finally kicked in.

“Guys, I know this room,” Jim said,

looking to his friends who for some reason were still on the floor.

Steve hadn’t even sat up yet.

“This is the spare guest room in my house.

Somebody re-painted it.

Jim went for the door leading out to prove his theory.

His hand clutched rough, hard plastic and he turned the knob, but to no avail.

“What the…?” Jim drew his hand back and looked at the door knob.

It had a child grip on it.

Stranger yet, Jim soon realized as he tried to open the door again,

his hand couldn’t properly navigate the grip.

His fingers had developed a mind of their own,

and that mind wasn’t particularly bright.

“My hands…” Jim gasped, looking as though his own digits had betrayed them.

“Dale,” Steve called when Jim had ignored him.

Dale wasn’t much better.

Dale was preoccupied with his own problems.

“Jim,” Dale said, a touch of panic in his voice.

“I got a problem, man. I can’t stand up. My legs aren’t working.”

Jim turned from the door and looked down at Dale.

He noticed that Dale was still sitting on the floor,

his bare legs gathered up underneath him,

and his bare feet digging impotently into the carpet.

Dale looked like he was trying to rock forward,

but he could barely get his rump off the ground,

and his feet wouldn’t move or shift to support his weight.

He just kept rocking back and forth as if that would somehow accomplish something.

It only then registered to Jim that his friend wasn’t wearing any pants.

Dale was clad in nothing but an orange t-shirt and ridiculous underwear printed with polka dots,

circles,

tiny pictures of Disney characters

and for some reason the number 3.

Only, Jim realized, it wasn’t underwear…not really.

“Dude…” Jim said. “Are you in a diaper?”

Dale,

who had just then managed to shift his weight enough

so that he could support his weight on the palms of his hand and the flats of his feet-

like a little scrunched-up cat-

looked between his legs and couldn’t believe his eyes.

“Shit!” he yelped, right before he tried to cover his groin with his hands.

He was beet red.

Unfortunately, this caused him to lose balance and fall right back onto his padded backside.

Dale’s legs splayed a bit as he was forced to sit back down, the bulk of the diaper caused his legs to spread ever so slightly.

Adrenaline rushing,

Dale went for the tapes around his waist-

ready to rip the infantile garment off of him right then and there-

only to find out that much like Jim,

his fingers wouldn’t cooperate.

“The hell,” Dale said as he struggled in vain to remove the diaper,

“Why won’t these tapes come off?”

Dale took a closer look at what was encasing his nether region.

“And who makes Huggies this big?”

“Dude,” Jim laughed. “You look ridiculous.

Steve, did you get a look at this?”

“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you,” Steve cursed.

“I. Can’t. Move.”

Both Dale and Jim finally took the time to notice their friend.

Steve, all close to three hundred pounds of him,

was sprawled on the floor,

squirming pathetically with his arms and legs leeched of strength and not getting any traction whatsoever.

Unlike Dale, who was pants-less,

and Jim with his T-shirt and shorts,

Steve was dressed in soft yellow pajamas with feet sewn in.

Only Steve’s hands and head remained uncovered.

And even though they couldn’t see it directly,

the crinkling sound as he struggled to find purchase and significant bulge around his hips and buttocks made it obvious that he was thickly diapered.

“Ha!” Jim pointed and laughed.

“You guys are so messed up, man.

I knew you were going to a baby shower,

but I didn’t think you’d be the baby!”

Steve groaned and grunted as he managed to roll back over to his back with almost Herculean effort.

“This isn’t…errrrr…funny…Jim.” Steve said.

“Besides, you’re dressed like a baby, too, bro.”

“What?” Jim was incredulous.

“No I’m not. I’m…” he looked down at himself.

His T-shirt had a “Go Diego Go” logo on it,

and his shorts- which come to think of it he didn’t normally wear shorts- were a soft Navy Blue color with an elastic waistband.

His shoes were an obnoxious shade of neon yellow and were obviously the kind with Velcro instead of shoe laces.

Still, that didn’t mean that he was dressed like a…

Jim heard the crinkle as he bent over to look at his shoes, and realized it was coming from him.

How he had not noticed how far apart his feet were?

He realized he had appeared to gain a few padded inches of girth directly below his belly as well.

Jim lifted the front of his shirt up and heard Dale and Steve gasp and start to sputter as he looked down at his waist.

Poking up above the elastic waistband of his new shorts was a white paper-thin top of a diaper,

and for some reason, Jim somehow knew that if he pulled his pants down

he’d see Mickey and Minnie Mouse holding hands on the front.

Just like the Huggies that he’d bought earlier today.

“There they are!” a familiar voice caught Jim’s attention.

The voice was immediately followed by equally familiar giggles.

Jim turned around and saw,

what had made Dale and Steve start gasping and sputtering in embarrassment:

Lisa, Mindy, and Heather.

Their wives.

“Whatcha doin’ lifting up your shirt, big boy?”

Lisa came over to Jim.

“Are you wet?”

Then, without any further warning, Jim found his pants yanked down and his wife squeezing the front of his diaper,

a dry crinkle being the result. “Nope,” she pronounced.

“Baby!” Jim screeched. “Not in front of the “

“I know, I know,” Lisa tutted as she walked around Jim.

“You’re a big boy and don’t like having your diaper changed in front of the little babies,

but Mommy’s still gotta check.”

That wasn’t what he was going to say at all!

Still, Jim stood there, a crimson statue of embarrassment as his wife pulled back the waistband of his diaper and glanced down his backside.

“Good for now,” she pronounced, letting the diaper snap back into place.

Then, just as quickly as she yanked Jim’s shorts down, she bent over and shimmied them up to his hips.

“The fu-?”

“Mindy? Heather?” Lisa talked over Jim’s astonishing swearing,

“How are your boys?”

Dale gawked like a fish as Heather walked over to him,

her high heels and the fact that she could stand making her seem so much taller than he was.

“Honey,” he stated, “this isn’t what it looks mmmph!”

Dale’s attempt to explain was cut short as his wife shoved a pacifier in his mouth and clipped it to his t-shirt.

Dale’s lips began sucking on the thing immediately, and a strange sense of relaxation began to spread through him.

That didn’t mean that he didn’t notice or mind when Heather bent over and traced the thin yellow line on his diaper  with her fingernail.

“Still dry,” she said, a hint of disappointment in her voice.

“Oh well,” she said, bending over,

“let’s get you to your party. Dale had wanted to echo “party”,

but his lips wouldn’t stop sucking,

o all that came out of him was a mumbled “pappy?”

The almost stoned buzz that Dale was getting from the rubber between his lips was thrown off as Heather,

his wife almost his exact same size and weight grabbed him under his armpits and deadlifted him off the floor.

His legs, part from shock and part from a long-buried instinct wrapped around Heather’s waist.

In a seamless, and effortless transition,

Heather moved one hand to Dale’s back and the other arm to under his rear end.

She was holding him like a baby.

“Mommy!” Dale shrieked without entirely meaning to; though the pacifier in his mouth made it come out as “Mmmmeee!”.

Heather looked at Dale in the eye, and a faint smile crossed her lips.

“Dude!” Dale heard Jim exclaim.

Dale looked over at Jim. Jim hadn’t seemed to notice it,

but he was holding Lisa’s hand, now.

Jim’s hand was white-knuckled, while Lisa barely seemed to register.

Mindy walked over to her husband and knelt down beside his prone form.

“Mindy, help!”

Steve begged. “I…I…I’ve fallen and I can’t get up!”

Mindy ignored her husband and unsnapped a few buttons running up the legs of his feetie pajamas.

Barely able to lift his head up, Steve felt her two slender fingers slipping past the leg gathers of what was most definitely the diaper he was wearing and feel around.

“He’s wet,” Mindy actually smiled,

“but I think he’ll be okay for a little while longer.”

She quickly refastened the buttons she had undone.

“Wait!” Steve panicked,

“You don’t mean I…I…?”

The words “I pissed myself” wouldn’t voluntarily come to Steve’s brain,

but they did to Dale and Jim’s.

Both Jim and Dale watched in astonishment as Mindy,

who while tall,

was over a hundred and fifty pounds lighter than her husband, p

icked him up from the floor and cradled his massive form in her arms.

Steve’s diaper became a little wetter for the experience.

“Okay, Mommies,” Lisa proclaimed,

“now that we have the stars of our party, let’s go meet the guests.”

“Guests?” All three said.

Then the three ladies began to walk.

Dale could only hold onto Heather.

Steve, big as he was might as well have been a kitten in Mindy’s arms.

And Jim tries as he might, couldn’t pull away from Lisa’s grip.

He tried, briefly to dig his heels,

but his feet wouldn’t listen and just kept in a leisurely pace with Lisa who was leading the way out of their spare guest room,

down the hall and into the living room.

“Lisa,” he said,

“what’s going on? Why are we dressed like-?“

“Patience, big boy,”

Lisa pushed a finger on his lips,

which somehow shushed him.

“It’s your and your little friends’ big day.”

“Aaaaawwwww!” a series of overlapping and ear-piercing coos and squeals overwhelmed the men’s ears as they were carried and lead into the living room.

Women, close to a dozen of them,

all around their age,

were sitting around the family room with gift boxes in childish wrapping paper.

Jim, still being led by his wife, avoided eye contact.

The women, who all seemed to know his name kept saying “Hi” to him and waving at him.

“Hi Jim!”

“Hi Jimmy!”

“Say Hi!”

“Hi!”

They were smiling at Jim,

but not in a way that made him feel particularly comfortable.

When he finally caved and waved back at them,

causing them to cheer even more.

He felt like a trained monkey.

Like a captive animal, he immediately began looking for exits and to his dismay noticed that there was an impossibly high wooden gate blocking his way to the front door.

No way was he going to be able to jump that,

not with the super thick underwear crinkling between his legs and throwing off his gait.

He was the only one of his friends that could still walk, it seemed, and it was more of a waddle at present.

Dale was getting more of the same,

with the requests for waving “hi”.

Instead of complying like Dale,

he buried his face in Heather’s hair,

nuzzling her shoulder as if it could protect him from all of these strangers.

That only made them redouble their efforts.

They started running their fingers through his hair and patting his pack.

Some even tried to poke him or tickle him while beckoning “Look at me!”

“He’s so shy.”

“Poor little guy”

“Doesn’t know what’s going on.”

Well, they at least had that part right.

“Awww,” Heather reassured him, gently.

“It’ll be okay.”

Somehow,

Dale knew that to be both true as far as Heather was concerned and a complete lie as far as he was.

Steve had his cheeks pinched, and his belly rubbed as Mindy paraded him around the living room,

every woman’s hand just dying to touch him as if he held the cure for cancer.

“So cute!”

“Oh my god, so tiny!”

“Are you kidding? He’s already gotten so big!”

“Stop!” Steve demanded after the first one started tickling his chin.

“Stop!” He pleaded when a second one started working on his feet.

“Staaaa”, he broke down into whining and squirming and squealing when an entire horde descended upon him and he was unable to do anything to stop it.

“This was a great idea, Lisa,”

one of the strangers said.

“Having a late baby shower for little Stevie at the same time as a birthday party for Jimmy is just perfect

! Two birds with one stone” she raised a wine glass.

“And don’t forget Dale’s christening,” Heather chirped in.

“Oh, he was so cute up there in his fancy little onesie,”

One of the strange women added.

“Good thing you got that off him as soon as you did, though.

Wouldn’t want him getting it all messed up crawling around on the floor.”

“Wish I could just crawl around the floor in my underwear,”

one of the guests joked as she tipped back a glass.

“Didn’t that used to be your job?”

another remarked. More tipsy laughter followed.

“So which gifts should we open first?”

someone asked when the laughter died down.

“Oh I think we should open little Stevie’s gifts,” Mindy said,

“but then I’m biased.”

“That’s a good idea,”

Heather nodded while lightly bouncing Dale on her hip.”

“I agree,” Lisa said. “Jimmy’s a big boy.

He can wait.

Besides, if we let him start opening his gifts,

he’s gonna want to open everyone’s.”

All the women nodded as if sage wisdom had just been uttered from the lips of the sage herself.

Jim thought he saw a few mouths the words “Terrible Twos”.

“Do you want little Stevie to open his presents?” a guest asked.

“Oh, I don’t think he has the patience to sit in my lap while I help him unwrap everything” Mindy said.

“Why don’t we let little ones play in the pen a bit, and I’ll open the first round of gifts.”

“Agreed,” Lisa said.

Lisa led Jimmy over to an impossibly large playpen that could have been the plastic, steel, and mesh skeleton of a bounce house and put Jimmy inside it.

Jimmy waddled through the door,

a door that a regular playpen would never need, and turned around to view the party behind him.

“Aren’t you worried that Jimmy might be too rough with the little ones?” someone asked.

“Not really,” Heather said, lowering Dale onto the floor of the playpen with Jimmy.

“Jimmy and Dale have always gotten along so well.”

“And I know they’ll both be careful with Stevie,”

Mindy added, as she laid Steve down the padded mat on the floor.

“Now let’s open some presents!”

“Dude,” Steve choked back a sob as the women began to drink more wine and unwrap presents somehow intended for the men,

“the hell is going on?!”

“Vey fink…!” Dale stopped and finally spit the pacifier out of his mouth,

leaving it to dangle on the clip.

“They think we’re babies or something,”

Dale hissed.

Dale managed to scramble to all fours and was now on his hands and knees.

“Yeah, but why?” Jim asked

. “I mean, Dale’s in a diaper, but…-”

“You’re in a diaper too, asshole!” Dale snapped.

“At least you can’t see mine right now,” Jim’s lip curled defensively.

“Really?” Dale said, “because I’m pretty sure you’ve either got a diaper on under those shorts,

or you gained five pounds in the ass and are really, really happy to see me.”

“Guys!” Steve pleaded, “This isn’t a competition.”

“Says the guy who wet his diaper,” Jim snarked.

“Jim!” Steve growled. “I can’t sit up,”

Both Jim and Dale had the decency to look ashamed.

“I feel like I’ve been working out for non-stop and that there are invisible weights on every major muscle in my body and that my spotter is on coffee break.

“Okay man,” Jim admitted.

“This isn’t a competition.

You win ‘suckiest situation’ right now.

How do we get out of this?”

“I don’t even know how we got into this,” Steve said.

“Me neither,” Jim sat down so he could look his friends in the eye.

Dale shook his head, and began to grab his pacifier to put it back in his mouth like a smoker going for a pack.

A glare from Jim and Steve made him reconsider.

“You heard what they said, right?” Steve asked from his back.

“This is a baby shower…for me.”

“And my second birthday party,” Jim added.

“And I apparently got Christened today,” Dale said.

“But we’re not babies.”

“I dunno,” Steve said. “Diapers. Wet. Hard to move. I’m kinda feelin’ the part.”

It was meant to be a kind of ironic joke to cut the tension,

but inside, Steve was already beginning to despair.

“Yeah, we’ve dressed the part,” Jim acknowledged,

“and kinda acting the part, too. But that shouldn’t matter.

We’re still grown-ass men”

“Yeah,” Dale agreed.

“How is Heather picking me up, then?

how is Mindy picking up Steve? No offense Steve.”

“None taken,” Steve replied. “It’s pretty’ weird.”

“So this is more than just dress up,” Jim said.

“But what’s going on?”

“Sounds like somebody’s hungry.”

Mindy walked over and into the play pen,

interrupting their conversations.

“You hungry, little guy?”

“Little?!” Dale shouted indignantly. “Mindy, he’s like me and Jim put together!”

He reached up to tug on her dress.

“Uh, uh, uh,” Mindy easily swatted Dale’s grasp away.

“You’ll have to get fed by your Mommy, sweetie.”

“It’s like they’re ignoring us because we can’t talk or something,” Jim said.

Predictably, Mindy didn’t respond.