“You just need more practice,” his friends told him. They encouraged him to ask his parents for a Wii of his own and Andy agreed, though privately he preferred the older, simpler gaming systems and did not look forward to sharing a Wii with his younger brother, Jake. So to fit in, Andy put down a new bike and a Wii on his Hanukah wish list, confident he could get one but not both, even though he really wanted neither.

What he really wanted was diapers. For the past few years, Andy longed to be put back in diapers, to be routinely checked and changed, to have no more concern for making it to the toilet than he did for having a job. The why of it eluded him.