The next encounter occurred on my tenth birthday. A boy from my school had his birthday on the same day as me so we had our birthday parties together as one big blowout. Our parents rented a skating rink and we got to invite all of our friends and classmates to come skate for free. Man, that place was packed. There were kids there that I had never met but I didn’t care cause in my mind that meant more presents for us! Everything went along as you would expect and everyone had a great time. We got so many awesome gifts and tons of money from people that just gave us cards with cash in them. Those are my favorite kinds of presents. Hint!-Hint!
Well anyway, as things were starting to wind down and several kids had already left, I was out making a few final laps around the rink when I heard my mom call me. She wanted me to come to say thank you and good-bye to everyone as they left. As I was coming off the rink floor, I saw some kid over at the end, sitting all by himself and looking kind of bummed out. I skated over to him really fast to make sure he was ok but as soon as I rolled up to him, I could see why he was so upset. He had wet marks down the legs of his pants showing that he was wearing a diaper that had sprung a serious leak.
When he looked up at me, I could instantly see that he was about to bust out crying, but I acted fast.
“Hey, my names Max and I’ll help you. Stay here until I come back,” I said.
I then skated over to my mom, whispered in her ear about the boy and asked her to get my jacket from the coat and shoe room, which she did. I then took my jacket to the boy, had him stand up and I tied it around his waist using the sleeve as a sort of belt and let them dangle down in front. He told me his name was Simon, and although we had never really met, I later found out that we were in the same gym class. Luckily, he already had his skates off and his shoes on so I rolled along beside him as he walked up to the door.
My mom stopped us as we got to the door and whispered to him, “Just have your mom send the jacket back later.” And then he left.
After we got home, my mom praised me quite a bit for being so nice to Simon and helping him. I played it off by saying something like, “I just didn’t want him to be embarrassed in from of all those kids.”
That was the only time in my life that I openly supported someone that wore diapers where my family or friends knew about it. Although what I did for Simon just came naturally at the time, later when I was alone in my room, I realized just how close I came to being discovered. At age ten, being labeled is something that can stick with you forever, at least that’s what I thought at the time. So I determined that, from now on, I would be more careful about hiding my secret infatuations with those that wore diapers.
I am sure you are wondering if Simon and I became friends. I am sorry to say, no we didn’t. Simon’s mom did bring my jacket back the next day and it had been freshly laundered, but when I tried to become friends with Simon in Gym class, he acted like I had the plague or something. I got the idea and backed off from him. I still see him in the halls sometimes at school but we never even so much as say hello to one another. I doubt if he even remembers me but I sure do remember him and Simon’s secret is safe with me.
