Story #88: The Buckaroo with Huggeroos

Story #88: The Buckaroo with Huggeroos (Content Tags: Slice of life, diaper dependency, wet and messy diapers) Huckleberry beamed with southern pride; he was sad to see his home stretch behind him during the move. You can take the boy out of the country, but you can't take the country out of the boy; he lived that motto, from his cowboy boots, to his blue jeans, from his belt buckle to his hat. Even if he had to go live in the north, right in the suburbs outside the big city, he could still keep the rugged image that he'd sculpted himself as. There was really only one big problem with that: Huck wasn't completely toilet trained, and nothing softened an image more than the rounded cushion of a puffy diaper. It wasn't like he didn't know how to use the bathroom like a kid his age should, it had more to do with the accidents that hadn't stopped since his first foray out of diapers in the first place. He'd turned eleven, and still, he suffered the embarrassment of springing a leak or making a cowpie in his pants. It was bad enough that he'd really just never made the jump to underpants. He'd had to watch as Megan, his little sister, had lapped him in that specific area of maturity, even though she was three years younger than him. Needless to say, the girl never missed a chance to hold that over his head. Back in Texas, when they'd been living in a more rural area, it hadn't been too difficult to keep things a secret. His mama had homeschooled them for a handful of years, and when he did end up going to public school, he'd been old enough to be cautious about keeping a low profile about them. He'd mostly been in cloth training pants at school; they were relatively discreet, while still being heavy duty enough to keep his pants clean in the case of an accident. At home, he was switched to a more traditional set of cloth diapers and plastic pants, which his mother would launder and set out on the clothesline to dry. They hadn't had any neighbors for at least a couple of miles, so Huck never had to worry that someone from school might see his dook-stained britches swaying in the wind. When it was hot enough out, he'd even forgo pants altogether, and just run around with his diaper out; that was the benefit of living on such a large piece of land! But, such an idyllic life wasn't meant to last. His father had gotten an offer on their land that was quite substantial, and their uncle had offered to let them come to work on his farm up north instead. At first, that hadn't sounded too bad to Huckleberry! At least he'd still be living the rural life on a nice little farm! That ended up not being the case. The farm was a little too far from school, and there really wasn't enough room in his uncle's house for them to live there full-time anyway. So instead, Huck's father bought a modest house in suburbia, about twenty miles from the farm, and he worked out a deal for him and Huck to work seasonally at the farm instead of full-time. His father's primary job instead became managing the logistics of many of the local farms and acting as a consultant for them. It was less hands-on, but the pay was better, and it put his father's more intellectual talents to work. Meanwhile, with the kids being in school and with the new house having much less maintenance, his mother began to take on new hobbies and odd jobs like babysitting. She also got entangled with the other mothers on their street, since she'd spent so much time starved for a local group to be a part of. Megan even seemed to much prefer their new place; she'd never been quite as country as Huckleberry, and she reveled in not having 'farm chores' to attend to early in the morning. She was quick to make friends and adapt. But Huckleberry wasn't as pleased as the rest of his family. He missed the wide open spaces, the horse riding, the southern cuisine and that larger than life Texas culture! He'd known as soon as they were moving in, that this change in scenery wasn't a positive thing. Just one look at the dinky size of the yard was enough to tell him that he'd be having a lot less fun. His cloth diapers, which he'd grown accustomed to, were also getting left behind. With his mother not being as beholden to the homestead, there was less time to be cleanin' up his filthy britches. He'd been put in a disposable for the long road trip over, and after seeing the convenience, his mother hadn't turned back. He still had his cloth trainers at first, which he'd been more adamant about keeping, but when he was at home, he was getting taped up in bulky, crinkly disposable diapers. Any complaint about the transition was moot, since the obvious response was that he was way too old to still be needing diapers in the first place. His first couple of weeks after the move were rough. He slowly started to mingle with their neighbors, since school hadn't started back up yet, but the culture shock was difficult to traverse. He thought that everyone had a funny accent, while his own was sticking out like a sore thumb! The salve that soothed him was when some of the other kids began to ask him questions about his home state, and finding his way of dress and manner of speaking to be charmingly exotic. That's when Huckleberry realized that he didn't need to try to 'adapt' like the rest of his family, he just needed to lean in to who he was, with the confidence that was previously lacking. Allowing himself to retreat into his comfort zone, Huckleberry thrived and came to enjoy the attention that he was getting. Little did his newfound acquaintances know that under the cowboy hat, boots, and bravado, was a thick white diaper that often lugged around lumpy luggage. Once school had started back up again, Huck was feeling pretty good about himself and his new home. He expected that his new classmates would be as enamored with his southern charm as the neighborhood kids had been. The morning of the first day, while getting his hair brushed, he hyped himself up in the mirror. It was somewhat humorous, not that Huckleberry could see it; here he was, effectively a little wimpy elementary kid, wearing little more than a sagging and yellowed diaper, and he was flexing his arms like he was some western star. The irony of it only grew when he was sitting at the kitchen table like that, with his sister opposite to him, and he took care of his morning BM. It wasn't an unusual sight, even if an unsavory one; breakfast, which today was a syrupy stack of pancakes and a big glass of milk, was where he almost always offloaded for the first time of the day. It was the reason that he went to breakfast in the diaper that he woke up in, since otherwise he'd be needing two changes before the day had even begun. The feeling came on quick and Huck hardly gave it a second thought; he was in the middle of chewing a big bite of the soggy pancakes, and he just tilted in his chair and let nature take its course. There was a wet fart and a muffled crackling; the saturated disposable puffed out with the load and Huck unceremoniously sat back flatly on his chair to finish his meal. Megan gave him a dirty look, but didn't comment on it. She'd grown used to her older brother being so open at home with his diapers, while inversely being rightfully shy of them anywhere else. She got up to go wash her plate and pinched her nose on her way back. "Ain't it time to use the potty like everyone else?" She jeered. The girl had gotten more bold since their move, which probably had something to do with the girls in the neighborhood that she'd started to play with. With more social circles, she was able to see more clearly that her brother's little problem wasn't at all common. Boys might take longer to train than girls, but Huck was taking that to some extremes! Huckleberry rolled his eyes and gulped the last of his milk. "Why don't ya mind yur' own beeswax, it ain't got nothin' to do with ya." "Yuh-huh it does! I don't want other kids to think that I gotta wear baby-pants too, marshmallow-butt. The second oldest kid in this neighborhood that's got Pampers like you is five, an' Judy says that he's gettin' in trouble for goin' so slow!" Some color crept onto the boy's face; first from the nickname and then from the direct comparison to Tyson, the stinky Kindergartener down the street that appeared as inept at toileting as Huck himself. Some choice words were about to come out of his mouth, and they would have been frothing and venomous as a rabid rattlesnake, but their mother had come to move them along. "Come on, the bus will be here in twenty minutes, you kids need to get the lead out!" The woman chided, gesturing for them to hurry it up. As she came to grab her son's empty plate, she caught a whiff of him and waved her hand in front of her nose. "Shoo-whee! Huckleberry, you smell like a barnyard!" She dramatically announced, as she grabbed a hold of his waistband and pulled it back. "...Yup, got some business in your pants; a whole heapin' haul of it. Let's give you a lil' pit stop before the bus.." One dirty diaper in the pail later, and Huckleberry was getting dressed for the day. He had on a pair of the thick cloth trainers that he'd hardly worn since the move, and he was deciding what ensemble would wow his peers the most. There was clearly a dissonance there, that he thought he could present himself as impressive, when he'd been sitting in his own poop just minutes prior. That dissonance, which was the source of this unfounded confidence, would be seeing one hell of a shakeup in the coming times. Maybe he'd fool people for a while, with his whole cowboy persona, but that charm would be seeing some major degradation when people caught on to what the southern boy still wore. He'd just put the finishing touches on his outfit when his mother hollered at him to get his butt outside for the bus. Without any further hesitation, he grabbed his backpack and his brown bag lunch. It was time to face the day! As he sat on the bus, his boot-adorned feet kicking back and forth, he started to think that maybe his new home wasn't so bad after all. It wasn't anything like Texas, but he could bring the Texas with him! Though in this buckaroo's case, that also meant cowpies, and plenty of them!