Julia pushed the cart down to one end of the store, hoping to get a quick start on things. But deep down, Julia knew this was going to take a while. She had gone shopping with her Mother many times before. On big trips like this, her Mother insisted on walking though each and every aisle, while going over the grocery list slowly. It was a game. Her Mother liked to start on one side of the store and would try and have every item on the list checked off when they finished walking down the last aisle on the other side. Julia thought it was pretty silly, mainly because they almost always lost and had to go back to a few aisles for food they missed.

The two of them started in aisle 18, which had bread and baked goods. There were a lot of items on the list there, and Julia picked out sandwich bread and a few muffins that she planned to have for either breakfast or an after school snack. Aisle 17 and 16 went by pretty quickly, but they got hung up in aisle 15 on cereal, which was mainly Julia’s fault as she couldn’t make up her mind.

By the time they got to aisle 13 Julia realized that she was in trouble.

The hope of making this a fast trip had pretty much vanished. The list had a lot of items still unchecked, including a bunch of produce, which Julia knew would take a long time since her Mother was a total nut job when it came to picking the right fruits and vegetables. And then they still had to check out, and then get to the car, and then get home. Julia knew she wasn’t going to be able to hold it for too much longer. She really needed to go. Part of her said screw it just go, but she still dreaded the idea of having a real accident in the store. It wasn’t like at school where she could take care of things on the way to Mrs Bernard’s office. She decided to try to hold on and hope.

By aisle 10 hope was vanishing. By aisle 9 it was gone.

They were only half way through the store. Julia had been trying to help her Mother with stuff on the list, but the pressure was turning into a major distraction. Julia knew she could hold it for a little while longer, but not much. Ten minutes maybe? Fifteen at best? ‘There’s no way we are getting out of here in ten minutes.’ Julia told herself. ‘Thirty minutes is more likely, and there is no way I am going to be able to make it that long.’ Julia stopped thinking for a minute and tried to take a look at the list. Her Mother was off at the other end of the aisle looking for something and had taken the list with her, leaving Julia and the cart behind. With nothing to distract her at all, Julia had to face it.

Looking back on it, Julia realized that it was this moment when she truly and finally gave in. ‘You know what? Screw this.’ Julia thought to herself. ‘Why am I even thinking about it? I mean, I’m wearing diapers for a reason. What difference does it really make if I poop my pants now or later? It’s not like I am not going to end up in a poopy diaper if I wait! I’m just being ridiculous. I need to seriously stop worrying so much about stuff that doesn’t matter.’ Then for some reason Julia thought about Kate, and what she had said at lunch. ‘The less you care about it, the less of an impact it will have’.

Julia shook her head and decided to just accept the situation she was in. Kate was right, and Julia knew it. All this freaking out was getting tiresome. ‘That’s it, I’m giving up on the whole worrying about the when and wear of using my diapers.’ Julia decided. ‘I mean, what’s the point? I wear diapers all the time, I use them all the time, so who cares when or where I use them. Why should I care where I use my diaper?’ A different voice, a new voice, from a different part of her head, answered the question:

‘I don’t.’ it said.

For whatever reason, maybe it was repetition, maybe it was resignation, but for some reason Julia felt very different about the thoughts going through her head. She knew that the decision to stop fighting it, to just go ahead and use her diapers and to not care, was some kind of turning point. ‘Maybe I am finally learning to use my diapers like I’m supposed to.’ And the other voice inside her head said ‘And it’s about time! It only took you like 2 weeks or something.’ Julia smiled, ‘I like this other voice’ she told herself.