The Best Babysitter in Town Vol. 2 Ch. 9

Freshman year, a townie friend of mine who decided to live on campus went to a frat party with a boy, and he proceeded to get shitfaced. She got drunk too, but, like, a reasonable degree of drunk. She took him back to her dorm, let him sleep in her bed with her, and she woke up to find he had peed all over her. Know how dorm mattresses are waterproof? She described it as waking up in “standing pee.”

She made a much bigger deal out of it than was necessary. She’d “never felt so gross” in her life, didn’t think she’d “ever feel clean again,” took “so many showers,” had to ask her mom to buy her new sheets. Dramatic much?

I, having earn my reputation as the mom of the friend group for a reason, told her, in slightly kinder words than this, she should choose dates that aren’t, ya know, fucking morons, and she was lucky he didn’t throw up on her. If he had, I’d have been more sympathetic. I’ve been spat up on, which is gross, but I’ve yet to have a kid puke on me (I’m saving that joyful experience for motherhood).

But pee? It’s a little icky, but it’s not nearly as horrible as she made it out to be. That’s what I told her, to which she rejoined, “O yeah, when’s the last time you got peed on?”

“I’m babysitting four or five nights a week lately. It happens occasionally.”

“That’s totally different.”

“Not really.”

She shook her head at me as if I was the one in need of the wisdom needed to make better choices and informed me, “Trust me, if it ever happens to you, you’ll get it.”

I am proud to say I was right and my friend was wrong. Moments after waking up in Gordy’s bed, I sensed something wasn’t right. I was wet; I was laying on a sheet that was wet; the Gordy-side of my clothes were wet. He was still fast asleep, curled up on his side and facing away from me. I slid my hand under the covers to check his diaper. It was saturated almost to the back waistband. I didn’t freak out about it. I just shut my eyes for a moment and sighed, readying myself for what I assumed would be another round of Cheer Up The Sad Boy once Gordy woke up and realized he’d peed all over me.

And not that I was getting impatient with his condition, but let’s just say I’m in demand as the best babysitter in town. I could have an overnight gig every week if I wanted to, and I can say with assurance that in no prior 18-hour period of babysitting have potty issues and their emotional toll taken up so much of my physical and mental energy. Add to which I only brought a few outfits, and I hadn’t put the stuff I washed yesterday into the dryer. If something got on my last outfit before the dryer was done, I’d be wearing about as much the pantsless, shirtless twenty-year-old boy beside me.

When I sat up and surveyed the damage, just wow. They say sometimes bedwetting is caused by the person sleeping very deeply. I don’t think you can call an incontinent person peeing the bed a bedwetter, but Gordy was definitely way deep into dreamland to not have woken himself up. Obviously, he can’t feel when he needs to pee and only sometimes feels when he’s peeing, but he definitely can feel when most of his body is wet. The bottom edges of his pillows were wet. The comforter was wet. If Gordy were wearing any pajamas, they would’ve been wet from his knees to his neck, and we’d only been asleep an hour. I’ve seen bedwetters soak a bed like that, but never through a diaper and not after just an hour of sleep.

He needed two light nudges and one big one to wake up. I hesitated to wake him; maybe he needed the sleep, and anyway, it would be hard to do more damage than he’d already done. So his sheets would get wetter; they’d need to be washed regardless, and really, how much wetter can a very wet thing get? But I still decided to wake him. The day was wasting away.

“Gordy,” I said not quietly but not loudly. Nothing worse than being woken suddenly up as groggy as I’m sure he would be coming out of so deep a sleep. “Gordy, wake up.” He stirred, squirmed as if trying to shrug off whatever was interrupting his beauty sleep. “Come on, we gotta get up.” To be fair, I guess he didn’t have to. He couldn’t stay like that, but if it hadn’t woken him, he didn’t exactly have to get up. He’d still be asleep and his bed in as much need of changing after I took a shower as before; another half hour in a wet bed wouldn’t hurt him. But that didn’t cross my mind at the time. I was thinking more about the afternoon slipping away and being hungry. I’d be a crummy babysitter if I let him sleep in such a mess while I did my homework and ate a sandwich.

“Gordy,” I said a little louder to accompany the big nudge. He stirred and went still again, but I could tell from how rigid he got that he was awake and feeling the same sensations that had greeted me. I got out of the bed.

As I was trying to see how wet my outfit was, Gordy said, “Um, I leaked a little.” Well, how was I not supposed to laugh at that? He sat up and pivoted his legs out of bed, facing away from me stll. “It’s not funny.”

“You leaked a little? Turn around,” I said still chortling. Sorry-not sorry, but it was funny.

He turned, and in my head I was thinking, And there’s the wide-eyed, red-faced twenty-year-old boy I sit for. His response to the damage? “O.”

I got serious in response to his response. “Do not apologize or get upset about it. You hear me, buster? Not a big deal.”

“Did I get you?”

I turned partway so he could see my back. “I’m not sure,” I teased him. I’m not sure if sarcasm goes over Gordy’s head just when he’s embarrassed or all the time.

“Um, a little, but it’s not that much.”

O my god, did he just fib to me? “You big fibber.”

He smiled and laughed. “I’m just teasing.”

What the huh? That threw me. There was Gordy, clad only in a diaper that was probably going to slide to the floor the moment he stood up, having just peed on me, and he told a joke (at my expense). Talk about defying expectations. This was a Gordy I hadn’t met yet. No sniffles. No wet eyes. No stuttering or apologies.

“We both need a shower. Meet you back here in ten?”

When I got out of the shower and opened my suitcase, no joke that the leggings I put on were my last pair of pants until the dryer was done, which it wouldn’t be for a while cuz I had to run the washer again first. Stupid of me to forget to put things in the dryer the night before.

I found Gordy wearing a towel and stripping his bed. “Aren’t you lucky to have a mattress cover,” I remarked, testing just how cool Gordy really was with sleep wetting that much in front of (and on) me.

“It’s not luck. It’s experience.” A clever response.

“So in your experience, how do we clean your comforter?” It was down, probably real if I had to guess. I wasn’t sure if it could be put in the washer or not.

“In the washer, but on its own on the gentle cycle. It can go in the dryer, but on low heat, and it needs to come out still damp and air dry, which takes a while. I have another.” Sounds like he has plenty of experience.

“Good.” I patted the changing table twice. “Hop up.” I don’t know if he had waited for me to diaper him or didn’t think he needed to get back in a diaper as quickly as I thought he did, but after what he’d just done, I didn’t want him undiapered for a second more. Running a couple loads of wash is one thing; trying to get pee out of the under-padding below the carpet, not so much. That was my thinking as Gordy stepped over to his changing table before I remembered that he’s not eight and can clean up carpet as well as I can can, but that wasn’t really the point. “Maybe lose the towel.” I didn’t look, but I’m sure his ears blushed. “You got nothing I haven’t diapered before.” Yeah, I probably (by which I mean for sure) shouldn’t have said that. He blushed and made his squiggly face again.

Gordy situated himself and I quickly got one of his daytime diapers under him. I looked down to grab some Desitin, and when I looked back up, you’ll never guess who was leaking into the diaper still open underneath him. I quickly pulled it up to cover him and held it there.

His head jerked up. “Am I …” What cut him off, I think, was the leakage became a stream. My hand definitely felt it. I don’t know if Gordy felt the stream or felt his diaper area rapidly getting warm and wet. I don’t think he can feel that a hundred percent, but with my hand pressing down, pretty sure he did. His let his head fall back and grunted in annoyance.

“Hey, what did we just say about not getting upset about these things?” Just came out, and I admonished myself once more to stop phrasing things like I was talking to a child.

“It’s not that.”

I cautiously pulled back the diaper to see if he was done. He filled it, like, a third of the way. My brain said one of those things I’d never under penalty of torture say to Gordy: he’s like an incontinent camel today. “Then what? Lift your butt.” Into the chute that diaper went.

“I’m … urgh.”

“It’s alright. Just say it.”

“I’m backed up.”

“As in constipated? Are you sure?” He’s gone twice already, at least one of which was surely as memorable for him as it was for me.

“Yeah, and that’s probably why.”

“But you went twice today.” True story, not the first time when babysitting that I had a conversation about my charge being constipated, but first time I had it with the charge and not their mom.

“I’m not completely backed up, but that’s probably why I had an accident and why I’m peeing so much.”

It took me just a moment to connect the dots: when a kiddo is wetting the bed, especially after they’ve been dry for a long period, usually they’re constipated. Everything down there is situated pretty close together. A full bowel puts pressure on the bladder, and the result is the kid peeing more, including, sometimes, in their sleep. One of my clients taught me that when she told me her kiddo I’d been sitting for a couple of years was back in Goodnites at bedtime after being out of them for more than a year, and also to explain why I needed to make sure the kiddo drank some MiraLax before bed no matter how much she didn’t want to. I didn’t know the same thing happened to adults though, not that it had to do anything with Gordy’s sleep wetting but it explained the frequency and volume. I didn’t understand the ‘being constipated is why I had a messy accident’ part, but Gordy’s the expert on these things and I had zero desire to google how that works.

I considered for a moment and asked, “You want double diapers or one of your overnights?” Said it, realized I should’ve given him the full set of options, and added, “Not that you can’t wear just one daytime if you want. Up to you.”

“Overnight, please.”

“So this happens sometimes,” I asked as I looked under the table. “You’re out of overnights.”

“There’s more in the closet, right-hand side. Yeah, sometimes.”

“How do you deal with it?”

“Wait and see if it resolves itself.” Always best when things resolve themselves, but hoo buddy, hoped he would be sitting on the toilet if and when the problem resolved itself.

His closet isn’t full of diapers, just a pack or two of the daytime, nighttime, and the ones the stepmonster puts over her lap right before turning Gordy over her knees.

“And if it doesn’t resolve itself,” I asked as I tried to clear a path on the floor so I could step in far enough to reach the overnights. “Gordy, seriously, if you were under eighteen, I’d tell you no screen time tonight until your closet is clean. Even for a boy, this is …” What the …?

“Um, if it doesn’t – and I only wait a day –  I, uh, use a … I’m sure you can guess.”

Did he just verbally roll his eyes? Probably, but I wasn’t listening. I was looking at the package of giant pampers in my hands. First off, huh? And second, o my god they were so cute! As a reminder, I’m only twenty years old too – a highly competent, empathetic twenty-year-old who used those attributes to become the best babysitter in town and build a thriving micro-business – but surely I’m still young enough that I could do something impulsive against my better judgment, such as, o, say, asking Gordy what the heck was up with those diapers?

“Um, Gordy,” I said as I emerged from the slot canyon that was his messy AF closet, “what are these?” I mean, I tried to suppress a smile and keep the giggle out of my voice; I get some credit back for that even though I failed, right?

“O geez!” He covered his face and looked away. “Put those away.”

“Okay, but seriously, what are these? They’re adorable.”

He took his hands away and looked back at the package, rolling his eyes so hard and sighing. “They’re a gag gift. I don’t actually wear them.”

“Who would give you these?”

“Remember Dan Abramson?”

“Yeah. I thought you two were friends.”

“We are. We give each other gag gifts on our birthdays.”

“O … Kind of a mean gag gift.”

“It’s a guy thing. We just bust each other’s chops. I don’t wear those; I just didn’t know what to do with them so I put them in my closet.”

I believed that. For one, they were unopened. For two, super easy to believe he just dumped something in his closet and forgot about it.  For three, it was October and I found them under a winter coat, which was under a beach towel and assorted summer and spring clothes, i.e., they’d been on the floor of his closet for multiple seasons probably.

“They’re cute. Are they actual diapers? Like, do they work?”

“Yeah.”

“How would you know if you never wear them,” I teased.

“The Internet. Are you gonna do this, or should I do it myself?”

O yeah! Shoot. I guess I really am used to Gordy just being naked and not even noticing anymore, huh? “Ope! Don’t pee, I’ll be right back.” Hey genius, shut up.

“O yeah, I’ll do my best.” That time, definitely a verbal eye roll.

I was about to step into the archeological dig that was Gordy’s closet when I gave in to immature impulse number two. “Um,” I said as I turned around slowly because I knew way better than to do what I was doing, “would you wear one?”

Gordy looked not so happy with that question. With a little incredulous shake of his head he asked me, “Why?”

“Cuz they’re cute. Look,” I said turning the package around so he could see, “tell me this lion isn’t adorable.” Judging by the look he was giving me, Gordy was not impressed. “Seriously, it’s mane looks like the sun. And look at these colors.”

“You’re serious,” he said.

I blushed because yes, I was. “I just wanna see you in them one time.”

“Why?”

“Because you’ll look so heccin cute!” Since when do I say heccin?

He sighed. We’d both sure done a lot of that in less than a day. “Fine, but only because I need a diaper on and only because you’ve been so nice to me.” I practically skipped to the changing table. I don’t know why I wanted to see him in one other than Gordy is cute and those diapers were easily as cute as any I had ever put on anyone and, well, I thought he’d look adorable in them. I wasn’t trying to baby him or imply anything by it. I just thought he’d look cute. I’d pressured other boys into wearing something I thought looked cute; of course, I was either dating those boys or related to them, but still.

I tore open the package and pulled one out. “O my god, these feel exactly like Huggies.”

“That really doesn’t make it more appealing.”

Like with those boyfriends, for some reason I wanted him to agree with me how cute they were and how cute he was in it. Never had my efforts to get those boyfriends to agree been met with any such enthusiasm. You might even say the opposite of enthusiasm. If I had to describe their reactions generically, I think I’d describe them as fine-are-you-happy-now? I didn’t let that stop me from trying to get Gordy on board.

“Look. I love this shade of aqua.”

“Which one’s the aqua? The bluish green?” That is such a boy thing to say. Seriously, show a color chart to a group of women and a group of boys and compare how they label the colors.

“And the blocks and this big ‘3’ like that’s the size.”

“Please don’t narrate the diaper.”

“Ha! Sorry. Okay, about to spread some rash cream.” Always good to warn him first; wouldn’t want the cold goop under his bits to catch him by surprise with and have him fall off the table. “A little powder … and done. I love these velcro tapes.”

He looked down at himself and made a funny face. Not haha funny. He rolled his eyes at me. My older charges rolling their eyes at me? I’m used to that. And those boyfriends I cajoled into matching Halloween costumes and Christmas sweaters and things usually rolled their eyes at me too once they had it on. Must be something about not wanting to do something and seeing me smiling when they did it anyway and trying so hard to make them like it too that just provokes eye rolls from boys. Ha!

And then he grinned at me. A patient grin that said he was humoring me and was hoping it made me as happy as I’d hoped it would. “Well,” he asked, “is it as cute as you hoped?”

“Yes! Heehee!  Get up. Lemme see your butt.” He did, again with that patient, humoring look. “O, that is so adorable.” I reached out and patted his bottom. I mean, even if patting diapered bottoms wasn’t coded into my babysitter DNA, I’d have done it. “I wish I had a picture of you in this.”

“Absolutely not.”

“I know, I know. I’m just teasing. How does it feel?”

“I … Like a diaper.” Could he be any more of a boy with that answer? ‘How’s it fit?’ ‘Me no care. Me man. Eat meat now?’

“No way they all feel the same. Seriously, how’s it feel?”

He seemed to focus on how it felt for a moment (there’s a form of mindfulness I hadn’t encountered before – ‘stand still and really concentrate on how your diaper feels’ isn’t in any of the wellness magazines I’ve come across) then reached down to feel his front and back. “Honestly? Not bad. It’s actually pretty soft.”

“Think it’ll do a good job? Cuz if it won’t, we can take it off and get you into …”

“They work well. The internet says so,” he hastened to add.

“Good. Tell me when you need a change, but I’m gonna check you more. Fair warning.” He doesn’t like getting checked, at least that’s my sense from having done it a couple times and getting reminded he can do that himself. I know he can, but I also know I’m better at it. Like his stepmom said, he gets diaper rash sometimes; he can’t be batting a thousand with timely changes if he gets diaper rash. Plus him peeing like a fountain that day and wearing an untested diaper, yeah, I was going to be checking him more for sure.

“I’ll take all this to the washer,” I said as I gathered up his bedding. “Bring your stuff downstairs and let’s get our homework over with. Then we can start our real weekend, deal?”

He nodded and I got to the door. I tried to resist, but I just couldn’t. I turned back around and asked him, “Not that you have to, but can we please clean your closet after we’re done with homework? You can just sit and tell me where stuff goes.”

He chuckled at me. “It’s bothering you that much?”

“So, so much.”

“Yeah, and I’ll help.”

“Thanks.” I turned to leave, then turned back. “I’m not a dork or a girly-girl.”

“O…kay.”

“Just so we’re clear.”

I had the whole flight of steps downstairs plus loading the washer to ask myself why I said that, why it was important to me that everything that had just transpired didn’t make Gordy think of me as the kind of woman who goes to pieces over ducklings and obsesses about closet cleanliness.