Post by Bad Beth on Jul 14, 2013 13:57:26 GMT
Chapter 11
I woke up in the middle of the night in a wet diaper. All the lights were off in my room and my comic book was gone. Everyone was in bed and I was still above the covers. I wonder how late it is.
When I turned on my light and got out of bed, I realized I was really wet. Wet enough for my diaper to leak if I peed in it one more time. I felt my covers for wet spots to see if my diaper had leaked. I felt none. The leakgaurds must have done the work. I looked at our clock. It was 1:35 AM. I got my diaper wet in four hours, holy moly. I went to the closet and fetched myself a clean diaper, wipes and a disposable mat. My diaper made noise as I walked to the bathroom. I hate wet diapers. They make my bottom itch and I don’t like the feeling of them. I took it off in the bathroom and put it in the sink. I wiped my whole bottom and laid the mat on the floor and unfolded my diaper and lied down on the mat. After I finished putting my diaper on, I picked up my dirty diaper and threw it away in the garage in the trash can. I went back to the bathroom and got my mat and wipes and put them in my room. I crawled back in bed and turned off the light and went back to sleep.
* * *
Mom picked me up early from soccer practice for my doctor’s appointment. I got my soccer ball and water bottle and got in the car. When we arrived, I was very surprised to see the building was a house. Mom and I got out of the car and looked at it.
“This is it?” I asked. “It looks like a house.”
“I know it does,” Mom replied. “It probably used to be one until it became an office.”
We walked in the building. The address of the place was nailed on the door. There was a sign nailed on the siding next to the door. It said “rollerblades, rollerskates, bare feet, and shirtless not allowed.” We waited in the waiting room. There were magazines, books, and toys. Most of them were Happy Meal toys. After I was done playing with them, I read some books.
I heard a door open and two ladies and a child walked by the waiting room. “Thank you so much,” said one of them.
“You’re welcome,” said the other. “I’ll see your daughter again next week on this day. Bye Melinda.”
“Melinda,” said her mother. “She says goodbye.”
“Goodbye,” said Melinda without looking at her.
After they left, Mom talked to the psychologist as I waited in the waiting room reading books and magazines. I was only reading the Parenting ones and the Child ones. I didn’t care they advertised training pants for little kids. I had enough of complaining about me not being potty trained. I’m just a geek and I’ll always be one.
When Mom was done talking to the psychologist, I went in her office to talk to her. Mom waited in the waiting room.
“So Natalie, tell me what’s been happening to you past these two months?” asked Mrs. Smith.
“I didn’t know how to answer that. “I’ve been going to school,” I said.
“I know that,” she said. “Your mother told me you’ve been having problems at school and at home. So have you?”
I shrugged.
“You don’t know?”
I was looking at the whole room and at my psychologist. I looked at her bottom to see if she wore diapers. She didn’t.
“So how old are you Natalie?” asked Elizabeth Smith.
“Fifteen,” I replied.
“When’s your birthday?”
“In February.”
"What school do you go to?"
“Saltwater High School.”
“What do you do there?”
That was the stupidest question someone’s ever asked me who had gone to school before.
“Learn,” I replied.
“I know that.”
“Then why did you ask?” I asked.
“Because I’m trying to get you to tell me about what’s been happening in school.”
“Well,” I said. “At least Veronica quit bugging me.”
“She did?”
“Yep, me and her had to sign a contract to our principal that we will not ever bug each other again. If we ever go back to doing it, we will get expelled from school for the rest of the year.”
“That’s good,” said Elizabeth.
“How old are you?” I asked.
“Thirty seven,” she replied.
“Are you married?”
“Yes.”
“How old is your husband?”
“Thirty nine.”
“Do you have any kids?”
“Yes, two.”
“How old are they?”
“Seventeen and thirteen.”
“Are they boys or girls?”
“The seventeen year old is a boy and the thirteen year old is a girl. So what were you and Veronica doing to bug each other.”
“Veronica passed a note about me in English that said I stunk so in Geography class, I passed a note saying she wets the bed.”
“She wets the bed?” Elizabeth interrupted.
“No,” I said. “I made it up.”
“Please don’t make things up,” she said. “It annoys me and it’s not nice.”
She wasn’t getting what I was saying. “No no no no,” I said. “I wrote that on a piece of paper and passed it around in class to get even and do you know what happened?”
“What?”
“She got teased about her bedwetting and she told everyone it wasn’t true and they didn’t believe her and after Veronica and I signed a contract, I had to tell everyone she doesn’t wet the bed and kids got mad at me. They told me I was stupid.”
“And why were they mad at you?”
“Because they wasted their times teasing Veronica about her bedwetting and then they found out she doesn’t wet the bed after all.”
I told my psychologist the rest about what Veronica and I did to each other before the contract. I told her about me accidentally breaking her leg at soccer practice, and she was in crutches the next day. I told her I hid one of her crutches in the courtyard because she tripped me. I told her about me talking to Veronica’s little sister in front of her house and Veronica came out with her roller blades and saw me talking to her kid sister so she made fun of both of us about my germs. I told her about the fight we had in the hallway at school because I passed the note about her bedwetting and the teachers had to break us up and we were both suspended for a week.
“Was your mother mad when you were suspended?” Elizabeth asked.
I shrugged. “I don’t know. Probably because I got punished. I had to do chores all week and my brother and sister didn’t need to do any because I was doing their chores for them.”
“How many brothers and sisters do you have?”
“Three,” I replied. “Two brothers and one sister.”
“How old are they?”
“Twenty two, twelve, and nine. I’m the second oldest and the twelve year old’s a girl. We both share a room and my little brother has his own bedroom.”
“I knew you had an older brother,” said Elizabeth.
“How did you know?” I asked.
“Your mother told me. She said she saw you kick a woman when she looked out the window at your brother’s apartment and she wanted me to talk to you about it.”
“Oh.”
“Why did you do it?”
“Because the sign said to,” I replied.
“What sign?”
“The sign on her back said ‘kick me.’”
“I see, now I understand. You think if you see a sign and it told you to do something, you will do it right?” Elizabeth asked.
“Not exactly,” I said. “When I saw the sign on the lady’s back, I knew I didn’t have to kick her but I did anyway because she was being a bitch to me so I treated her like one. That’s why I kicked her.”
“What was she doing?”
“Being a bitch,” I replied.
That was a stupid question.
“No no no, let me start over. You kicked the lady because she had a sign on her back and you wouldn’t have done that if she wasn’t being a you know what. So how was she being one?”
“She came outside and started screaming at me and she called me a bitch and she also grabbed my shirt.”
“But that didn’t give you permission to kick her,” said Elizabeth. “Yes it did sound like she was not a very nice lady but what happened before that?”
“Kelly, Matthew, Allie, and I were all playing soccer outside because the grownups kicked us out.”
“Who’s Kelly, Matthew, and Allie?” Elizabeth interrupted.
“Oh Kelly’s my sister and Matthew’s my brother and Allie is a friend of mine,” I said. “She’s Brian’s girlfriend’s little sister.”
“Who’s Brian?”
“My older brother,” I replied.
“So you do have friends,” said Elizabeth.
I nodded. “Yep, she’s my best friend. We play together and she and her little brother and sister went trick or treating with Kelly, Matthew, and I.”
“Oh that’s right, I forgot that today is the first day of November and how long have you and Allie been friends?”
“Since the end of September,” I replied. “We met at her house when her little sister was turning ten.”
I didn’t tell my psychologist Allie was mean to me the first time we met because I didn’t feel like talking about it.
“And now back to that bitchy lady,” I concluded. “You see, we were kicked out because we were making too much noise while we were playing Monopoly but when one of us accidentally kicked the soccer ball underneath a car, Kelly and I tried to get it out but we couldn’t so I used a pogo stick but when I did, it went under another car so one of us had to go on the other side of it to catch the ball when I got it out again and I put the pogo stick back on the doorstep where I got it even though a little girl screamed that someone stole it.”
“Did you take it without asking?” Elizabeth asked.
“Yes.”
“Maybe that was why the lady yelled at you because you took her daughter’s toy without asking but she still had no right to call you a name. It’s never okay to call people names. She could have talked to you nicely instead of screaming at you.”
“All I was going to do was borrow it and get the ball from under a car and put it back. It was no big deal. The car was too low to the ground for us to reach under there so we had to use something to get it out.”
“So what happened?”
“The lady came outside and saw the pogo stick was still on their doorstep so she yelled at her daughter about it that it was still there and nobody stole it. Then she yelled at us if we had anything to do with it and Allie, Kelly, and Matthew blamed it on me. I was never involved in their fight.” Then a thought popped in my head. “What a minute,” I said. “I think they meant I caused the fight to occur because I took the pogo stick.”
“I think you’re right,” said Elizabeth.
“So the lady yelled at me. She told me to come over to her but instead I told her I used the pogo stick to get the ball from under a car but she just wouldn’t understand. She kept yelling at me but when she called me a bitch, Allie, Kelly, and Matthew all ran inside but I stayed outside because I wasn’t scared. Since the lady was being a bitch, I treated her like one so I yelled, “you want me, come over here.” I don’t remember what I exactly said but that’s about right.”
I tried to remember what happened next.
“I don’t remember what happened next,” I said. “But I do remember the next scene was the lady was near me. She was yelling at me and I wasn’t answering because I was enjoying her yelling and then she grabbed me by my ears and do you know what I did?”
“What?”
“I pulled her hair and she let go. I don’t remember what happened next. I think we were fighting and I tried to pull her hair again but she grabbed my arm and said ‘oh no you don’t, not this time.’”
“And then what happened?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. All I remember is as she walked away, I saw a sign on her back said ‘kick me’ so I did and I think she got mad and her daughter came out and said that’s what she got for doing something to her she didn’t like like a punishment. I don’t remember what the mother did to make her daughter mad so she put a sign on her back. The mother told her daughter I was a bitch and I was the one who stole her pogo stick and she punished her daughter for putting the sign on her back and that was when I noticed Mom was looking out the window. She saw the whole thing but it turned out she only saw me kicking the lady when she looked out the window. When I came inside, Mom had me sit at the kitchen table with her so she could talk to me about me hurting other people. During October I got suspended again for a week for punching a boy.”
“Oh no,” said Elizabeth. “Why did you do that?”
“Because he kept talking to me about my body while I was in my locked looking at my keychain collection. He kept talking about my boobs, my bottom, my thighs, everything. He even tried to put his hands in my clothes. I told him many times to stop but he wouldn’t listen and then he touched my boobs and that was when I punched him. I left him a bloody nose in his left nostril and a big bruise right next to his nose. My mom told me I could have smacked him instead of punching him.”
“Do you agree with your Mom?”
“Um yeah,” I said. “Last year when I was in junior high, I was sitting at the table eating my lunch and behind me were other girls sitting at the other table eating their lunch and they were talking about boys. They said some boys flirt with girls because they like them and they can also say something inappropriate to girls about their bodies and the girls usually punch them instead of smacking them.”
“So why did you punch the boy?”
“Because he touched my breasts so I punched him. I was being a girl.”
“What if girls usually smoke cigarettes? Are you going to do that too or let’s say girls in this town usually shoplift, are you going to do that too?”
“No,” I said.
“And why is that?”
“Because it’s bad and I want to be a good person and good people don’t shoplift ad bad people do.”
“But how about punching someone in school?”
“If they touch my breasts? Yeah.”
Then it was time for me to change the subject. It wasn’t a big deal I punched someone. Grownups just wouldn’t understand. The kids who witnessed it thought it was funny because the boy was blushing because he was so embarrassed.”
“Do you live here in town?” I asked.
“Yeah we do. We live near the downtown area,” Elizabeth replied. “You know where that is? It’s near North Avenue.”
“Yeah,” I said.
“Where do you live?”
“I live near the hillside,” I said. “You know where that is? Kids like to riding their bikes down the street that’s on it. It’s the longest street on the hillside. It goes straight down. Of course there are other streets connected to it.”
“Do you live on the hillside?”
“No, we live on the other side of it.”
“How far are you away from the hill?”
“About seven blocks,” I said. “I remember when I was little, I would ride my bike down the hill because it was the longest hill and I didn’t need to pedal because I could coast down.”
“Do you still enjoy it?” asked Elizabeth.
“Yep. Since I have gotten my razor scooter for my fifteenth birthday, I’ve been coasting down the hill with it”
Elizabeth asked me some questions about myself. She asked me what were my favorite things and what I like doing. I told her I like watching TV, playing video games, going on the internet, reading my comic books, looking at clothes, and doing puzzles and I told her my favorite things were playing video games, watching TV, riding my razor scooter, doing puzzles, and going on the internet.
I got up to stretch. “I have a question,” I said.
“What?”
“Did this place used to be a house?”
“It was a long time ago.”
“Oh,” I sat back down.
“What do you want to be when you grow up Natalie?”
I shrugged. When I was little I wanted to be a movie star. I dreamt about how famous I was. Everyone knew who I was so I had lot of friends. I saw myself in movies as someone else. I saw my name in books and my name was mentioned in other movies and TV series from other characters and now I’m in diapers nobody wouldn’t want to hire someone who isn’t potty trained. Nobody wouldn’t want to marry me, share a room with me in college, and nobody wouldn’t want to be my boyfriend. My life is going backwards.
“What did you want to be when you grew up when you were little?” I asked.
“I wanted to be a nurse but I’ve decided to be a psychologist because I wanted to help people with their problems. Have you decided what you want to be when you grow up?”
“I wanted to be an actress when I was little,” I said. “But now I don’t know what I want to be.”
I pictured myself in the future as an adult. I couldn’t have a job because nobody wanted to hire me because of my diapers so I lived in a home where people couldn’t take care of themselves because they had difficulties supporting themselves but I didn’t want that to happen to me. I wanted to grow up and get married and have kids. Then I pictured myself meeting a guy and he wore diapers too just like me. We got married and lived together but we didn’t have kids because we knew if we did, our child would get teased from other kids because of us. I pictured my child getting teased. “Hey, look. Here comes Michelle, she has two babies in her house which are her parents,” said one of the kids. “Oooo Michelle, do you change your mom and dad?”
I couldn’t picture that anymore because it felt too weird. I pictured my child wore them too just like us but it felt even weirder. A family living in a house but none of them are potty trained. None of the toilets got used in that house. They only got used for throwing up in. This was too weird. A whole family wearing diapers? Ew ew ew ew.
“Natalie?”
My thoughts were interrupted by Elizabeth.
“What?” I asked.
“Are you alright? You had a funny look on your face.”
“I did?” I asked pretending I didn’t know what she was talking about.
I was so embarrassed. I don’t know why I do facial expressions. I just do them automatically.
“Yes you did. Are you alright?”
“Yeah sure,” I said. “Have you ever seen 101 Dalmatians?” I asked. “You know, the one with real people in it?”
“Oh yes I have.”
“Do you remember it?”
Elizabeth nodded.
“Do you remember what the characters look like?”
“Let’s see,” said Elizabeth. She thought for a moment. “I know Glen Close and Jeff Daniels are in it but I can’t remember the names of the other people who are in it. I know Vanessa Redgrave’s daughter is in it but I can’t remember her name. What is it?”
“Joely Richardson?” I asked.
“That’s it. I remember the nanny was in it and the Baddum brothers.”
I knew she was talking about the movie.
“I don’t think Horace and Jasper are brothers in the live action one,” I said. “The book for the movie only said they were partners, not brothers. The people changed the movie around from the animated one because instead of Roger being a composer, he designs video games and the dogs do not roll in the soot and get a ride back to London in a moving van and instead of Roger and Anita walking to the park, they ride their bikes to the park, and they fall in the same pond at different times. The live action is different than the animated one. The original book Dodie Smith wrote is much different than the animated one. Roger and Anita have two nannies instead of one and their first names aren’t even mentioned. They’re called Mr. and Mrs. Dearly. In the animated movie, their last name is Radcliff and in the live action movie, their name is Dearly again. You can see it on the newspaper Cruella is reading and you can see it on the check Cruella wrote to Anita and in the book, instead of Anita owning a dog named Perdy, her dog’s name is Missis and instead of ninety-nine puppies being found at the mansion, there are ninety seven instead. The book is way different than the animated one.”
“I think the book is better than both movies,” said Elizabeth.
“You’ve read the book before?” I asked.
Elizabeth nodded.
“When?”
“When I was in fifth grade. I loved that story when I was a kid.”
“Since you remember what the people look like in the movie,” I said. “Do you think Anita wears diapers?”
Elizabeth had a funny look on her face. “Heavens, no. Is that why you had a funny look on your face?”
“No, I’m just wondering if it’s true because that’s what Allie’s little brother and sister think. They think Anita wears diapers and I keep forgetting to watch the movie to see if it’s true.”
“She doesn’t. Trust me,” said Elizabeth.
“How do you know? Haven’t you looked at her bottom? I need to remind myself to watch that movie,” I said.
“Anita does not wear diapers,” said Elizabeth. “Allie’s little siblings were probably just teasing her.”
“One day when I was at my sister’s soccer game, Allie was there because she wanted to get away from her brother and sister because they kept trying to convince her Anita wears them. Next time I watch the movie, I’ll look at her bottom at all times when she’s in the parts.”
“Shall we movie on to the next subject?” asked Elizabeth.
“Sure,” I said. I was starting to get tired of that subject. “Let’s talk about drugs and alcohol.”
“What about them?”
“Talk about how bad they are and how they affect you.”
“Okay, drugs can you amnesia. Do you know what that is?”
“Yes,” I said. “I’ve seen that in a movie with Joanna Kerns in it. Drugs can make you not answer people. I don’t know why that happens, it just does. Drugs can also make you have a short fuse. You know, you get mad easily.”
“What about smoking?”
“It effects your breathing,” I said. “And they shorten your life. I know some kids in my school who smoke. Some of them do it because they think it’s cool. They don’t even care about lung cancer. Have you ever smoked before?”
Elizabeth nodded.
“Did you like it?” I asked.
“No.”
“When did you try it?”
“When I was a senior in high school and my friends and I got caught so we got kicked out for a week.”
“Have you ever met anyone who is an alcoholic or know someone who is?” I asked.
“No, why? Do you know someone who is?”
“I think my dad is,” I said. “He’s been acting different right after Friday the 13th. He’s been coming home yelling and screaming at my mom about the house not being perfect just because we have a few things out of place because we were using them and he’s been getting into lot of fights with mom. He calls her names and he even has called me names too. I’ve heard him call Kelly and Matthew names too but it was sometimes. Dad comes home and he smells like beer and smoke. He gets mad at me about everything. He gets mad at me because my school work is too hard. I try to do it but it’s no use. I have troubles finding answers. I have troubles with written assignments, I have troubles with math and I even have troubles with projects. Only classes I don’t have troubles with is choir, PE, and cooking because all you have to do in choir is sing and in PE, all you have to do is exercise and do sports and in cooking, all you have to do is make food. Of course I have troubles in those classes sometimes because there’s a sub, so the kids are disobedient whatever that word means. Whatever it means it’s not good. In choir, sometimes I get lost in songs and it’s so frustrating because it’s embarrassing. Sometimes I sing the wrong words because we started the song all over and I didn’t even know it and the other kids did and in PE, the kids sometimes goof around in sports and it’s very frustrating. And every time I tell them to stop, they say ‘don’t tell me what to do.’ It’s just frustrating and the teacher doesn’t do anything about it and in cooking, the kids in my group stall around sometimes and they eat some of the food we need to make something and it’s very frustrating. It would be nice if everyone listened, did stuff right like playing games by the rules without breaking them and people being nice to everybody but that will never happen so that is why I like being by myself because there is no one there to get me mad.”
“Aren’t you lonely?” asked Elizabeth.
I shook my head. “Neah and not back to my father. No matter what I do, he’ll always be mad at me even if I wash his car , mow the lawn, water the flowers, clean out the litter box, pick up dog poop, do the laundry, wash the floors, vacuum the carpets, do the dishes, and even if I had a job and a driver’s license. He’ll always be mad at me. He thinks I’m stupid and every time my mom says I’m not, he says I’m retarded then. One time I was picking up our broken cookie jar and my father slapped my hands and told me hands off, I could cut myself and under his breath he added ‘dumb teenager.’ I try to do things right but I keep failing. Every time my dad’s around, I feel tense inside because I’m worried I’ll do the wrong moves. I don’t ever feel calm inside when he’s around. I liked him better when he was himself and now that he’s a whole different man, I miss my father and I wish he would come back but I don’t think I’ll ever happen. Do you think I’m stupid?” I asked.
“No,” Elizabeth replied.
“My daddy thinks I am. I can never do anything right. I’m a failure.”
“No you’re not. You’re a kid kids make mistakes and they learn from them.”
“But I’m almost an adult,” I protested. “I’m fifteen.”
“You still have a long ways away to become an adult. Believe me,” said Elizabeth.
“I’m in tenth grade.”
“So.”
“So that means my childhood is about to end.”
“No it isn’t. You have this whole month to be fifteen and the next month and the month after that and then your birth month until your birthday and then you’ll have the whole year to be sixteen and then next year you’ll have a whole year to be seventeen. That’s a long time.”
“It seems like a long time,” I said. “But years go by quickly and that’s why I say my childhood is almost over. Pretty soon I’ll be eighteen.”
“What’s so bad about being eighteen?” asked Elizabeth. “You’ll be able to vote.”
“And I’ll be able to order off of TV,” I added. “And receive the death penalty.”
“The death penalty?” Elizabeth asked. ‘Is that why you’re afraid of getting older.”
“Yes,” I said.
“Why? Did you kill someone?”
“No.”
“Then why are you worried about it?”
“Because what if one day I was in my own house minding my own business and then a bunch of policemen come over and arrest me for something I didn’t do.”
“That’s not going to happen.”
“How do you know?”
“Are you going to kill someone?”
“No.”
“Are you going to break into other people’s houses and take stuff?”
“No.”
“Are you going to steal cars?”
“No.”
“Are you going to shoplift?”
“No.”
“Are you going to write bad checks?”
“No.”
“Are you going to blow up buildings?”
“No.”
“Are you going to rob people?”
“No.”
“Then don’t worry about it. As long as you don’t break any laws, you won’t get arrested.”
“But I thought there were innocent people in prison,” I said. “What if that happens to me?”
“It’s won’t.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I know.”
“Then why are there innocent people in prison and on death row?”
“That’s rare. It won’t happen to you. There are lot of people in this country. There are about two million people in prison and about ten percent of them are innocent.”
“Do you ever think it would be nice if you had special powers?” I asked.
“For what?”
“Have people ever made fun of you or harassed you or stalked you or grabbed you or try to stop you in the hallways so you will be late to class?”
“I got teased when I was little,” Elizabeth replied. “And kids took advantage of me and I would get in trouble.”
“But did you wish you had special powers back then?”
“I don’t remember. How about you?”
“Sometimes I wish I had special powers because kids make fun of me, they tease me, and they try to take advantage of me. They threaten me to do stuff. I tell the principal that stuff but she thinks I deserve all that crap. I have troubles doing school work because it’s too hard. I just can’t keep up what the teachers are saying because I forget the words they say. I have troubles taking notes because the go too fast and I have troubles taking notes while the teachers are talking because I don’t know what to put down and not what to put down and my ears tune out so I don’t hear every single word they say. The principal probably thinks I do all this stuff on purpose. I get so mad when people are mean to me and when some teachers expect me to be perfect. I can’t read other people’s minds, no one can.”
“That is true, no one can read other people’s minds.”
“If I had special powers,” I said. “I would use them to get even with people. I would play mean tricks on them if they were mean to me. I would turn them into something else. I would make myself invisible so people wouldn’t find me. Over the weekend in the middle of the night, my dad came home and started yelling at Mom. I was so scared I stayed in bed and pretended I was still asleep. Kelly and Matthew were scared too. Kelly laid in bed crying and Matthew hid under his blankets.”
“I would be scared too if my parents were up in the middle of the night screaming,” said Elizabeth.
“And when my dad was through yelling, he left the house and didn’t come home till nine in the morning. Mom refused to tell us what happened between them two and when Dad came home, we asked him what happened and all of a sudden he got mad at Mom. He started yelling at her and then he started yelling about me. I get so sick and tired of my parents yelling about me and when my mother disagreed about me being a loser, my dad got really angry so he shoved her against the refrigerator and yelled at her some more about me and then he accused me of being retarded and Mom disagreed with that too so my dad pointed out that I wear diapers and Mom told him retarded people don’t wear them and the reason why I do is because I was in a car accident and then he told my mom that it was her fault but when she started to cry, my dad got angrier and said he had two babies in his house now instead of one. I really want to quit wearing them but I’m afraid it’s impossible because the doctor said I will never be able to go to the bathroom again.”
“My daughter wears them too,” said Elizabeth. “if it makes you feel any better and she doesn’t mind wearing them at all.”
“A little,” I said. “Why does she wear them?”
“She has cerebral palsy.”
“That’s different,” I pointed out. “Because people can see why she wears them. “She’s probably in a wheelchair, walker, or crutches.”
“She’s in a wheelchair and she also uses a walker.”
“So what happened to her anyway? Was she in a car wreck or something?” I asked.
“No, she got it when she was being born and for some reason not enough oxygen came to her head and she started occupational therapy at five months,” Elizabeth replied.
“Does she wear underwear too?’ I asked.
“Sometimes but she feels more comfortable wearing a diaper because she has accidents and she doesn’t like getting them on her clothes and furniture.”
“Isn’t it annoying for her to take her diaper off to go potty and the put it back on but the tapes won’t stick?”
“She doesn’t wear those kind of diapers. She wears the ones that pull up and down. They’re pull ups.”
“Well at least she gets to wear underwear and I don’t,” I complained. “I hate myself, I wish my parents had a gun so I can take it out and shoot myself.”
“Hey, don’t say that,” said Elizabeth. “There are good people out there that care about you. Your mother, your brothers, your sister, your friends, and other good people. Don’t let your problem want you to end your life. It won’t do you any good.”
“Yes it will. At least I wouldn’t have to wear diapers because I’ll be living in another lifespan.”
“Your family would miss you and so will your friends.”
“At least my mom and dad wouldn’t have to go to the store like every other two weeks buying me diapers,” I said. “They don’t bother with cloth ones because they don’t want to wash a bunch of dirty diapers and every time we have a bunch of friends or guests over for lunch or dinner, we use paper plates, paper cups, and plastic silverware so we wouldn’t have to wash a bunch of dishes and my sister sometimes teases me so I don’t think she cares about me. She calls me names, makes fun of me, and treats me badly.”
“That’s normal for brothers and sisters,” said Elizabeth. “My two older brothers used to tease me when I was a kid and I was mean to my little sister.”
“How many brothers and sisters do you have?” I asked.
“Just two brothers and one sister.”
“Just like me,” I said. “What did you do to your sister that was mean?”
“Well let me think,” Elizabeth thought for a moment. “I used to play mean tricks on her. I would hide her stuff, make up stories to scare her, I would pretend to take food off her plate and I did a bunch of other stuff.”
“What would you parents do about it?”
“Oh they wouldn’t do anything about it. They ignored us. Only time they would do something about it is if we were being psychical.”
“That’s funny, my brothers, sister and I aren’t ever mean to each other.”
“That only happens in some families.”
“My mom was very mean to her little brother when she was a kid because she was very unhappy. Every day she had to get up at the same time every morning. She had to eat the certain same meals on a different day of the week, watch the same TV shows, play with the same toys and do the same stuff. Her life was boring and she was getting tortured by her own autistic brother-“
“Oh I didn’t know he was autistic,” Elizabeth interrupted.
“I know and if there were a change like someone coming up on our doorstep, he would throw a big tremendous temper tantrum and the screaming would hurt my mother’s ears and she would get very scared so one day my mom decided to play a game. She would enjoy watching her brother scream. She would go in his room and move stuff around, change TV channels on him, and make a lot of noise to hurt his ears. She did a lot of mean other stuff to him and she would get in trouble but all it did was it got her madder and she would think of a better way to be meaner. She only did that when he got in her way by getting away with stuff. He would eat with his hands and eat off of other peoples plates, he was allowed to touch buttons, he was allowed to throw stuff, break stuff, wander off, that’s all I can think of. Today my mom’s brothers and sisters think my mom had the guts to stand up for her rights and theirs too. She had the guts to be mean. Their lives wouldn’t be easier without her and when they told my mom that, she asked them why were they never mean to him and they told her they were afraid of getting in trouble but she had the guts to do it no matter how many times she got in trouble and she would beat her brother for it when she had the chance to no matter how long it took her. Her parents would have him locked up in his room so my mom wouldn’t hurt him and that gave her brothers and sisters a chance to have fun by doing stuff they wanted to do. My mom had her chance to do her stuff too. My mom was one of the ten kids in her family.”
Elizabeth’s eyes grew wide. “Ten kids? Holy mackerel. That’s a lot of kids.”
“Yep, my mom had four sisters and five brothers. Two of them were twins. My mother knew all along that her parents could have tried teaching her brother manners and not be violent and not let him have his way and today they think it’s their fault my mother hates him so much and thinks autistic people are violent and dangerous. She doesn’t even want us around them because she’s afraid we’ll get hurt or get in trouble for defending ourselves because that stuff happened to her when she was a kid.”
“Okay, I think I’ve heard enough,” said Elizabeth. “Thanks for sharing that story but technically you’re here to talk about you and your issues, not about your mother but that was very interesting.”
“If it’s so interesting, then why don’t you want to hear the rest?”
“Because I’m getting paid to help you about your problems, not for you to talk about you mother’s problems she had when she was a kid.”
“I know but it’s so interesting. Every time I tell that story to other kids, they think it’s funny but very few of them think it’s mean because they know about autism. Do you think my mom was mean?”
‘I don’t know. I really don’t have an opinion,” Elizabeth replied.
“Do you think it’s possible I can be potty trained?” I asked changing the subject back to me.
“I don’t know, that’s a good question.”
“I bet my dad would be really happy if he found out I want to be potty trained but everyone keeps telling me it’s impossible, even Allie says it even though she has ADD and my sister says I have to learn to cope with it.”
“She is right, you do and even your mom says that.”
“Allie told me I can still have a normal life.”
“You can,” said Elizabeth.
“She told me she has a normal life even though she has ADD because she likes to do sports, she plays games, talks on the phone to her friends, writes emails, she babysits with her friends, goes on the internet, chats online with her friends, and she even baby sits her little brother and sister sometimes.”
“My daughter leaned to cope with her disability and I think you can learn how to cope with yours.”
“I have a disability?” I asked stunned.
“Oops, wrong word. Like I was saying, you can still have a normal life. You’re got friends, you and Allie have a very good relationship, you have nice girls on your soccer team, your little brother and sister have had friends at your house that liked you and were nice to you and played with you.”
“How do you know all that stuff?” I asked.
“Your mother told me.”
“Do you really think I have a disability?”
“I don’t think your diapers count as a disability because they don’t stop you from doing the same stuff other people can do. Only time they stop you from doing that stuff is if you let them.”
“I’m going to ask you a question and I want you to be honest,” I stood up. “Does it look like I’m wearing a diaper?”
I asked.
Elizabeth studied my bottom. “No,” she replied.
“Be serious,” I said.
“No seriously, you don’t.”
“Can’t you even see my butthole?” I turned around.
“No.”
“See, you can definitely tell I have a diaper on. Why do you think people look at me?”
“Are you sure they aren’t looking at you because you’re pretty?”
“Yes.”
“You can actually read their minds?”
“No.”
“Then how do you know what they’re thinking?”
“Because I just know. People are always looking at me. I walk by them and they turn their heads to keep looking at me.”
“Natalie, when people look at you, don’t assume they’re looking at you because you wear diapers. People look at me too and at my husband and two kids.”
“Does it happen all the time?” I asked.
“I don’t know. I don’t pay any attention.”
“I see people look at me all the time even if I’m like two hundred feet away.”
“This happens to everybody when they’re just standing somewhere and about ten feet away, they see someone looking toward their direction and it looks like that person is looking at them but really that person is looking at something else that’s towards that direction. Maybe that’s what you notice a lot but you’re assuming they’re looking at you.”
“When they look at my bottom, yeah,” I said.
“People don’t go around looking at other people’s bottoms. Only you do it. You need to stop obsessing about toilets, underwear, and about people being potty trained. You can’t go around looking at other people’s bottoms ‘cause you know why?”
“No.”
“Because you’re spilling the beans on yourself when you do that. Do you know what spill the beans means?”
I shook my head.
“It means that when you look at their bottoms, they’ll look back at yours and yes, they will notice you’re probably wearing a diaper,” Elizabeth explained. “For example you notice a little girl staring at your feet. What would you do?”
“Look at her feet,” I replied.
“Right. That’s how we respond to each other. That’s how our brains work. Now I’m going to show you something.” Elizabeth stood up and threw her fist in front of my face.
My eyes blinked.
“Now tell me what just happened?” she asked.
“I blinked my eyes,” I replied.
“Right. Do you know why?”
“No.”
“Because you were responding to an object that came to your face really fast. Now try me.”
I threw my fist in front of her face.
Elizabeth’s eyes blinked. “See what happened. It’s funny how our brains respond to that movement. We can’t control it.”
“I wonder why that happens?” I asked.
“I don’t know. It’s how our brains work and by the way, we’re out of time so I’ll see you next week and Wednesday at the same time.”
Elizabeth and I stood up and left her office. Mom was sitting in the waiting room looking at a Parenting magazine. She looked up and smiled. “Hi, how did it go?”
“Okay,” I said.
Elizabeth started to talk to Mom indistinctively. Mom opened her purse and took out the keys and gave them to me. She told me to go out and wait in the car and she’ll be there in a sec.
As I was halfway out the door, I heard Elizabeth and Mom talking. For some reason I knew they were talking about me so I went back and listened.
“I told her my daughter wears them too and she is not alone,” I heard Elizabeth saying.
“I just think my daughter needs to learn how to cope with them,” I heard Mom saying next.
I couldn’t understand the rest they were saying.
“My husband’s been having a real difficult time lately this month,” I heard Mom say. “I think my daughter is probably right, he’s probably been drinking. He leaves work and goes to the bar instead. I wonder if work’s been stressing him. He should talk to his boss and maybe he will give him some time off so he could relax instead of coming home yelling and screaming at us emotionally abusing us just because my children are making mistakes and blaming a lot of it on me just because I’m the parent. I think I’m going to have a little talk with him next time he has that kind of behavior. Him and I are going to have to find a way to work things out because if we don’t, it might get worse.”
After they were done talking, tried to hide but they saw me.
“Natalie, I thought I told you to wait out in the car,” said Mom.
“I was going to but then I got distracted by you guys talking,” I replied.
“I told you to wait out there so you wouldn’t listen to us.”
As I left the room I heard Mom reply, “eight years.”
Elizabeth must have asked her how long I’ve been in diapers.
After we left the building , we got in the car.
“So what did you think of your first appointment?” Mom asked as we pulled onto the road.
“Okay,” I replied.
“What did you two talk about?”
God sometimes Mom is so nosy.
“What do you think?” I asked sarcastically.
Mom took it literally. “Um I think you talked about your diapers and how much you hate them. What else? Um I think you talked about your father and how much you think he hates you. What else did you two talk about?”
I shrugged.
“C’mon, you heard what we said so I think I should know what you said,” said Mom.
“Mom, I didn’t hear the whole thing, honest,” I said. “All I heard was you telling her I needed to cope with diapers.”
“You do,” said Mom.
“And you telling her about my father,” I finished.
“See, going to counseling wasn’t that bad was it,” said Mom.
“No it wasn’t,” I replied. “But at least it was fun talking to someone but still I’m not sure if I belong there.”
‘Maybe you don’t. I’m just taking you to see one because I’m trying to be a good parent. That’s all because you’ve been wanting to kill yourself and you’ve been hurting people.”
“So.”
“Oh let’s stop here,” said Mom as she turned on the car signal. We parked in front of an old building and got out of the car and locked it.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
Mom pointed at the building in front of us. “In there.”
“Rat Place,” I read. “What is this place? What do they sell? Rats?” I joked.
“No, they sell antiques, electronics, and a bunch of other stuff,” Mom corrected.
“Mom, I was joking,” I said.
We went in the building and looked around. The building was three stories high. I was in the toy section looking at the old 101 Dalmatians Happy Meal toys on the second floor. I looked at the other toys too. There were some Strawberry Shortcake toys, Polly Pockets, old Barbie dolls, Fisher Price toys, action figures, and books. As I looked at the puzzles, I spotted Barney sitting on the shelf with other stuffed animals.
“Hey lady, come give me a big hug,” he said.
Oh shut the fuck up.
I walked over to him and ticked him in the eye.
I went back to the puzzles and looked at them some more. Then I saw a Barney puzzle.
“Come give me a big hug,” he said.
I buried the puzzle under a bunch of other puzzles.
I looked at the books until I spotted a Barney book.
“Come give me a big hug,” he said.
I threw the book.
After I was done looking at the toys, I looked at some old magazines. As I was looking at a Parenting one, I saw an ad of a toy Barney instrument for little kids. “Come give me a big huh,” said Barney. I threw the magazine down. Can I have some fun being in this store without having to see that green and purple t-rex? Everywhere I look, there he is in front of my face.
I went to the third floor to see what was up. It was just old furniture. I’m not interested looking at furniture. I never was.
I went back to the first floor and looked around some more.
At the checkout counter I saw a bunch of old video games on the shelf behind it. The lady gave them to me to look at. I looked at the Super Nintendo games and Sega Genesis games.
“How much do these cost?” I asked.
The lady pointed at the video game prices on the counter.
Atari games 25c
Nes Games 75c
Super NES games $1.50
Sega Master Games $ 95c
Sega Genesis games $1.00
Nintendo 64 games $5.00-$10.00
Playstation games $3.00
Sega CD games $2.00
Sega Saturn games $4.00
Game Boy games $1.00-$7.00
“Why are these games cheap?” I asked.
“Because we’re trying to get rid of them,” the lady replied.
I saw Barney Hide N’ Seek game with the other Sega games.
“Come give me a big hug,” he said.
“Ew,” I said.
I slammed the game down on the counter with the label facing down.
“Whoa, be careful with these games,” the lady warned. “Or you’ll be buying them.”
“Oh sorry,” I said. “I just don’t like Barney that’s all.”
“Well be careful.”
Then something touched me on my right shoulder.
I jumped a little bit inside. It was only Mom’s hand.
“Hey what did you find?” she asked.
“Video games,” I replied.
“We’re selling them for cheap because we have too many of them,” said the lady.
“And here are the prices right here,” I pointed.
Mom looked at them.
“Oh wow,” she said. “Maybe my daughter can help. Find what you want Natalie.”
I was shocked. I thought Dad said he and Mom aren’t going to buy us anymore video games.
“Really?” I said. “I thought dad said you guys weren’t going to buy us anymore video games but I’m glad you guys changed your mind.”
“That’s because video games cost a lot of money but these games here aren’t a lot. A dollar fifty for a video game? That’s very cheap.”
“Do these games work?” I asked the lady.
“I don’t know but they’ve been cleaned and tested so they should work.”
“Maybe you should only get one,” said Mom.
“Mom,” I said.
“Some of these games might not work so I don’t want to waste any money.”
“These games are guaranteed. Everything in this store is. If you buy something and it doesn’t work, you can take it back,” said the lady.
I picked out some video games.
“How about if someone bought something here and decided he or she didn’t like it or decided it wasn’t worth having, can he or she return it?” Mom asked.
“Oh sure. They’re all guaranteed nonetheless.”
“How many days do we have to return it?”
“Five.”
“Five. That’s not very long.”
“I know. That’s the owner’s decision. I don’t make the rules.”
“Did you find what you want Natalie,” Mom asked.
“Yeah. I found Revolution X, Barbie Super Model, Battletoads/Double Dragon, James Bond, Bart Simpson’s Nightmare, Fun N Games, Pinocchio, and Pac-Man,” I replied.
The lady added up all the games. “Okay that’ll be nine dollars and fifty cents please?”
“Oooo I have just enough money,” said Mom.
She opened her purse and gave the lady her ten dollar bill.
The lady put the money in the cash register and gave Mom back two quarters.
“Thank you,” she said.
“Have a nice evening,” said the lady.
Mom and I went out to the car.
“What do you say Natalie?” Mom asked after we got in.
“Huh, thank you?” I guessed.
“You’re welcome.”
I got the answer right.
I woke up in the middle of the night in a wet diaper. All the lights were off in my room and my comic book was gone. Everyone was in bed and I was still above the covers. I wonder how late it is.
When I turned on my light and got out of bed, I realized I was really wet. Wet enough for my diaper to leak if I peed in it one more time. I felt my covers for wet spots to see if my diaper had leaked. I felt none. The leakgaurds must have done the work. I looked at our clock. It was 1:35 AM. I got my diaper wet in four hours, holy moly. I went to the closet and fetched myself a clean diaper, wipes and a disposable mat. My diaper made noise as I walked to the bathroom. I hate wet diapers. They make my bottom itch and I don’t like the feeling of them. I took it off in the bathroom and put it in the sink. I wiped my whole bottom and laid the mat on the floor and unfolded my diaper and lied down on the mat. After I finished putting my diaper on, I picked up my dirty diaper and threw it away in the garage in the trash can. I went back to the bathroom and got my mat and wipes and put them in my room. I crawled back in bed and turned off the light and went back to sleep.
* * *
Mom picked me up early from soccer practice for my doctor’s appointment. I got my soccer ball and water bottle and got in the car. When we arrived, I was very surprised to see the building was a house. Mom and I got out of the car and looked at it.
“This is it?” I asked. “It looks like a house.”
“I know it does,” Mom replied. “It probably used to be one until it became an office.”
We walked in the building. The address of the place was nailed on the door. There was a sign nailed on the siding next to the door. It said “rollerblades, rollerskates, bare feet, and shirtless not allowed.” We waited in the waiting room. There were magazines, books, and toys. Most of them were Happy Meal toys. After I was done playing with them, I read some books.
I heard a door open and two ladies and a child walked by the waiting room. “Thank you so much,” said one of them.
“You’re welcome,” said the other. “I’ll see your daughter again next week on this day. Bye Melinda.”
“Melinda,” said her mother. “She says goodbye.”
“Goodbye,” said Melinda without looking at her.
After they left, Mom talked to the psychologist as I waited in the waiting room reading books and magazines. I was only reading the Parenting ones and the Child ones. I didn’t care they advertised training pants for little kids. I had enough of complaining about me not being potty trained. I’m just a geek and I’ll always be one.
When Mom was done talking to the psychologist, I went in her office to talk to her. Mom waited in the waiting room.
“So Natalie, tell me what’s been happening to you past these two months?” asked Mrs. Smith.
“I didn’t know how to answer that. “I’ve been going to school,” I said.
“I know that,” she said. “Your mother told me you’ve been having problems at school and at home. So have you?”
I shrugged.
“You don’t know?”
I was looking at the whole room and at my psychologist. I looked at her bottom to see if she wore diapers. She didn’t.
“So how old are you Natalie?” asked Elizabeth Smith.
“Fifteen,” I replied.
“When’s your birthday?”
“In February.”
"What school do you go to?"
“Saltwater High School.”
“What do you do there?”
That was the stupidest question someone’s ever asked me who had gone to school before.
“Learn,” I replied.
“I know that.”
“Then why did you ask?” I asked.
“Because I’m trying to get you to tell me about what’s been happening in school.”
“Well,” I said. “At least Veronica quit bugging me.”
“She did?”
“Yep, me and her had to sign a contract to our principal that we will not ever bug each other again. If we ever go back to doing it, we will get expelled from school for the rest of the year.”
“That’s good,” said Elizabeth.
“How old are you?” I asked.
“Thirty seven,” she replied.
“Are you married?”
“Yes.”
“How old is your husband?”
“Thirty nine.”
“Do you have any kids?”
“Yes, two.”
“How old are they?”
“Seventeen and thirteen.”
“Are they boys or girls?”
“The seventeen year old is a boy and the thirteen year old is a girl. So what were you and Veronica doing to bug each other.”
“Veronica passed a note about me in English that said I stunk so in Geography class, I passed a note saying she wets the bed.”
“She wets the bed?” Elizabeth interrupted.
“No,” I said. “I made it up.”
“Please don’t make things up,” she said. “It annoys me and it’s not nice.”
She wasn’t getting what I was saying. “No no no no,” I said. “I wrote that on a piece of paper and passed it around in class to get even and do you know what happened?”
“What?”
“She got teased about her bedwetting and she told everyone it wasn’t true and they didn’t believe her and after Veronica and I signed a contract, I had to tell everyone she doesn’t wet the bed and kids got mad at me. They told me I was stupid.”
“And why were they mad at you?”
“Because they wasted their times teasing Veronica about her bedwetting and then they found out she doesn’t wet the bed after all.”
I told my psychologist the rest about what Veronica and I did to each other before the contract. I told her about me accidentally breaking her leg at soccer practice, and she was in crutches the next day. I told her I hid one of her crutches in the courtyard because she tripped me. I told her about me talking to Veronica’s little sister in front of her house and Veronica came out with her roller blades and saw me talking to her kid sister so she made fun of both of us about my germs. I told her about the fight we had in the hallway at school because I passed the note about her bedwetting and the teachers had to break us up and we were both suspended for a week.
“Was your mother mad when you were suspended?” Elizabeth asked.
I shrugged. “I don’t know. Probably because I got punished. I had to do chores all week and my brother and sister didn’t need to do any because I was doing their chores for them.”
“How many brothers and sisters do you have?”
“Three,” I replied. “Two brothers and one sister.”
“How old are they?”
“Twenty two, twelve, and nine. I’m the second oldest and the twelve year old’s a girl. We both share a room and my little brother has his own bedroom.”
“I knew you had an older brother,” said Elizabeth.
“How did you know?” I asked.
“Your mother told me. She said she saw you kick a woman when she looked out the window at your brother’s apartment and she wanted me to talk to you about it.”
“Oh.”
“Why did you do it?”
“Because the sign said to,” I replied.
“What sign?”
“The sign on her back said ‘kick me.’”
“I see, now I understand. You think if you see a sign and it told you to do something, you will do it right?” Elizabeth asked.
“Not exactly,” I said. “When I saw the sign on the lady’s back, I knew I didn’t have to kick her but I did anyway because she was being a bitch to me so I treated her like one. That’s why I kicked her.”
“What was she doing?”
“Being a bitch,” I replied.
That was a stupid question.
“No no no, let me start over. You kicked the lady because she had a sign on her back and you wouldn’t have done that if she wasn’t being a you know what. So how was she being one?”
“She came outside and started screaming at me and she called me a bitch and she also grabbed my shirt.”
“But that didn’t give you permission to kick her,” said Elizabeth. “Yes it did sound like she was not a very nice lady but what happened before that?”
“Kelly, Matthew, Allie, and I were all playing soccer outside because the grownups kicked us out.”
“Who’s Kelly, Matthew, and Allie?” Elizabeth interrupted.
“Oh Kelly’s my sister and Matthew’s my brother and Allie is a friend of mine,” I said. “She’s Brian’s girlfriend’s little sister.”
“Who’s Brian?”
“My older brother,” I replied.
“So you do have friends,” said Elizabeth.
I nodded. “Yep, she’s my best friend. We play together and she and her little brother and sister went trick or treating with Kelly, Matthew, and I.”
“Oh that’s right, I forgot that today is the first day of November and how long have you and Allie been friends?”
“Since the end of September,” I replied. “We met at her house when her little sister was turning ten.”
I didn’t tell my psychologist Allie was mean to me the first time we met because I didn’t feel like talking about it.
“And now back to that bitchy lady,” I concluded. “You see, we were kicked out because we were making too much noise while we were playing Monopoly but when one of us accidentally kicked the soccer ball underneath a car, Kelly and I tried to get it out but we couldn’t so I used a pogo stick but when I did, it went under another car so one of us had to go on the other side of it to catch the ball when I got it out again and I put the pogo stick back on the doorstep where I got it even though a little girl screamed that someone stole it.”
“Did you take it without asking?” Elizabeth asked.
“Yes.”
“Maybe that was why the lady yelled at you because you took her daughter’s toy without asking but she still had no right to call you a name. It’s never okay to call people names. She could have talked to you nicely instead of screaming at you.”
“All I was going to do was borrow it and get the ball from under a car and put it back. It was no big deal. The car was too low to the ground for us to reach under there so we had to use something to get it out.”
“So what happened?”
“The lady came outside and saw the pogo stick was still on their doorstep so she yelled at her daughter about it that it was still there and nobody stole it. Then she yelled at us if we had anything to do with it and Allie, Kelly, and Matthew blamed it on me. I was never involved in their fight.” Then a thought popped in my head. “What a minute,” I said. “I think they meant I caused the fight to occur because I took the pogo stick.”
“I think you’re right,” said Elizabeth.
“So the lady yelled at me. She told me to come over to her but instead I told her I used the pogo stick to get the ball from under a car but she just wouldn’t understand. She kept yelling at me but when she called me a bitch, Allie, Kelly, and Matthew all ran inside but I stayed outside because I wasn’t scared. Since the lady was being a bitch, I treated her like one so I yelled, “you want me, come over here.” I don’t remember what I exactly said but that’s about right.”
I tried to remember what happened next.
“I don’t remember what happened next,” I said. “But I do remember the next scene was the lady was near me. She was yelling at me and I wasn’t answering because I was enjoying her yelling and then she grabbed me by my ears and do you know what I did?”
“What?”
“I pulled her hair and she let go. I don’t remember what happened next. I think we were fighting and I tried to pull her hair again but she grabbed my arm and said ‘oh no you don’t, not this time.’”
“And then what happened?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. All I remember is as she walked away, I saw a sign on her back said ‘kick me’ so I did and I think she got mad and her daughter came out and said that’s what she got for doing something to her she didn’t like like a punishment. I don’t remember what the mother did to make her daughter mad so she put a sign on her back. The mother told her daughter I was a bitch and I was the one who stole her pogo stick and she punished her daughter for putting the sign on her back and that was when I noticed Mom was looking out the window. She saw the whole thing but it turned out she only saw me kicking the lady when she looked out the window. When I came inside, Mom had me sit at the kitchen table with her so she could talk to me about me hurting other people. During October I got suspended again for a week for punching a boy.”
“Oh no,” said Elizabeth. “Why did you do that?”
“Because he kept talking to me about my body while I was in my locked looking at my keychain collection. He kept talking about my boobs, my bottom, my thighs, everything. He even tried to put his hands in my clothes. I told him many times to stop but he wouldn’t listen and then he touched my boobs and that was when I punched him. I left him a bloody nose in his left nostril and a big bruise right next to his nose. My mom told me I could have smacked him instead of punching him.”
“Do you agree with your Mom?”
“Um yeah,” I said. “Last year when I was in junior high, I was sitting at the table eating my lunch and behind me were other girls sitting at the other table eating their lunch and they were talking about boys. They said some boys flirt with girls because they like them and they can also say something inappropriate to girls about their bodies and the girls usually punch them instead of smacking them.”
“So why did you punch the boy?”
“Because he touched my breasts so I punched him. I was being a girl.”
“What if girls usually smoke cigarettes? Are you going to do that too or let’s say girls in this town usually shoplift, are you going to do that too?”
“No,” I said.
“And why is that?”
“Because it’s bad and I want to be a good person and good people don’t shoplift ad bad people do.”
“But how about punching someone in school?”
“If they touch my breasts? Yeah.”
Then it was time for me to change the subject. It wasn’t a big deal I punched someone. Grownups just wouldn’t understand. The kids who witnessed it thought it was funny because the boy was blushing because he was so embarrassed.”
“Do you live here in town?” I asked.
“Yeah we do. We live near the downtown area,” Elizabeth replied. “You know where that is? It’s near North Avenue.”
“Yeah,” I said.
“Where do you live?”
“I live near the hillside,” I said. “You know where that is? Kids like to riding their bikes down the street that’s on it. It’s the longest street on the hillside. It goes straight down. Of course there are other streets connected to it.”
“Do you live on the hillside?”
“No, we live on the other side of it.”
“How far are you away from the hill?”
“About seven blocks,” I said. “I remember when I was little, I would ride my bike down the hill because it was the longest hill and I didn’t need to pedal because I could coast down.”
“Do you still enjoy it?” asked Elizabeth.
“Yep. Since I have gotten my razor scooter for my fifteenth birthday, I’ve been coasting down the hill with it”
Elizabeth asked me some questions about myself. She asked me what were my favorite things and what I like doing. I told her I like watching TV, playing video games, going on the internet, reading my comic books, looking at clothes, and doing puzzles and I told her my favorite things were playing video games, watching TV, riding my razor scooter, doing puzzles, and going on the internet.
I got up to stretch. “I have a question,” I said.
“What?”
“Did this place used to be a house?”
“It was a long time ago.”
“Oh,” I sat back down.
“What do you want to be when you grow up Natalie?”
I shrugged. When I was little I wanted to be a movie star. I dreamt about how famous I was. Everyone knew who I was so I had lot of friends. I saw myself in movies as someone else. I saw my name in books and my name was mentioned in other movies and TV series from other characters and now I’m in diapers nobody wouldn’t want to hire someone who isn’t potty trained. Nobody wouldn’t want to marry me, share a room with me in college, and nobody wouldn’t want to be my boyfriend. My life is going backwards.
“What did you want to be when you grew up when you were little?” I asked.
“I wanted to be a nurse but I’ve decided to be a psychologist because I wanted to help people with their problems. Have you decided what you want to be when you grow up?”
“I wanted to be an actress when I was little,” I said. “But now I don’t know what I want to be.”
I pictured myself in the future as an adult. I couldn’t have a job because nobody wanted to hire me because of my diapers so I lived in a home where people couldn’t take care of themselves because they had difficulties supporting themselves but I didn’t want that to happen to me. I wanted to grow up and get married and have kids. Then I pictured myself meeting a guy and he wore diapers too just like me. We got married and lived together but we didn’t have kids because we knew if we did, our child would get teased from other kids because of us. I pictured my child getting teased. “Hey, look. Here comes Michelle, she has two babies in her house which are her parents,” said one of the kids. “Oooo Michelle, do you change your mom and dad?”
I couldn’t picture that anymore because it felt too weird. I pictured my child wore them too just like us but it felt even weirder. A family living in a house but none of them are potty trained. None of the toilets got used in that house. They only got used for throwing up in. This was too weird. A whole family wearing diapers? Ew ew ew ew.
“Natalie?”
My thoughts were interrupted by Elizabeth.
“What?” I asked.
“Are you alright? You had a funny look on your face.”
“I did?” I asked pretending I didn’t know what she was talking about.
I was so embarrassed. I don’t know why I do facial expressions. I just do them automatically.
“Yes you did. Are you alright?”
“Yeah sure,” I said. “Have you ever seen 101 Dalmatians?” I asked. “You know, the one with real people in it?”
“Oh yes I have.”
“Do you remember it?”
Elizabeth nodded.
“Do you remember what the characters look like?”
“Let’s see,” said Elizabeth. She thought for a moment. “I know Glen Close and Jeff Daniels are in it but I can’t remember the names of the other people who are in it. I know Vanessa Redgrave’s daughter is in it but I can’t remember her name. What is it?”
“Joely Richardson?” I asked.
“That’s it. I remember the nanny was in it and the Baddum brothers.”
I knew she was talking about the movie.
“I don’t think Horace and Jasper are brothers in the live action one,” I said. “The book for the movie only said they were partners, not brothers. The people changed the movie around from the animated one because instead of Roger being a composer, he designs video games and the dogs do not roll in the soot and get a ride back to London in a moving van and instead of Roger and Anita walking to the park, they ride their bikes to the park, and they fall in the same pond at different times. The live action is different than the animated one. The original book Dodie Smith wrote is much different than the animated one. Roger and Anita have two nannies instead of one and their first names aren’t even mentioned. They’re called Mr. and Mrs. Dearly. In the animated movie, their last name is Radcliff and in the live action movie, their name is Dearly again. You can see it on the newspaper Cruella is reading and you can see it on the check Cruella wrote to Anita and in the book, instead of Anita owning a dog named Perdy, her dog’s name is Missis and instead of ninety-nine puppies being found at the mansion, there are ninety seven instead. The book is way different than the animated one.”
“I think the book is better than both movies,” said Elizabeth.
“You’ve read the book before?” I asked.
Elizabeth nodded.
“When?”
“When I was in fifth grade. I loved that story when I was a kid.”
“Since you remember what the people look like in the movie,” I said. “Do you think Anita wears diapers?”
Elizabeth had a funny look on her face. “Heavens, no. Is that why you had a funny look on your face?”
“No, I’m just wondering if it’s true because that’s what Allie’s little brother and sister think. They think Anita wears diapers and I keep forgetting to watch the movie to see if it’s true.”
“She doesn’t. Trust me,” said Elizabeth.
“How do you know? Haven’t you looked at her bottom? I need to remind myself to watch that movie,” I said.
“Anita does not wear diapers,” said Elizabeth. “Allie’s little siblings were probably just teasing her.”
“One day when I was at my sister’s soccer game, Allie was there because she wanted to get away from her brother and sister because they kept trying to convince her Anita wears them. Next time I watch the movie, I’ll look at her bottom at all times when she’s in the parts.”
“Shall we movie on to the next subject?” asked Elizabeth.
“Sure,” I said. I was starting to get tired of that subject. “Let’s talk about drugs and alcohol.”
“What about them?”
“Talk about how bad they are and how they affect you.”
“Okay, drugs can you amnesia. Do you know what that is?”
“Yes,” I said. “I’ve seen that in a movie with Joanna Kerns in it. Drugs can make you not answer people. I don’t know why that happens, it just does. Drugs can also make you have a short fuse. You know, you get mad easily.”
“What about smoking?”
“It effects your breathing,” I said. “And they shorten your life. I know some kids in my school who smoke. Some of them do it because they think it’s cool. They don’t even care about lung cancer. Have you ever smoked before?”
Elizabeth nodded.
“Did you like it?” I asked.
“No.”
“When did you try it?”
“When I was a senior in high school and my friends and I got caught so we got kicked out for a week.”
“Have you ever met anyone who is an alcoholic or know someone who is?” I asked.
“No, why? Do you know someone who is?”
“I think my dad is,” I said. “He’s been acting different right after Friday the 13th. He’s been coming home yelling and screaming at my mom about the house not being perfect just because we have a few things out of place because we were using them and he’s been getting into lot of fights with mom. He calls her names and he even has called me names too. I’ve heard him call Kelly and Matthew names too but it was sometimes. Dad comes home and he smells like beer and smoke. He gets mad at me about everything. He gets mad at me because my school work is too hard. I try to do it but it’s no use. I have troubles finding answers. I have troubles with written assignments, I have troubles with math and I even have troubles with projects. Only classes I don’t have troubles with is choir, PE, and cooking because all you have to do in choir is sing and in PE, all you have to do is exercise and do sports and in cooking, all you have to do is make food. Of course I have troubles in those classes sometimes because there’s a sub, so the kids are disobedient whatever that word means. Whatever it means it’s not good. In choir, sometimes I get lost in songs and it’s so frustrating because it’s embarrassing. Sometimes I sing the wrong words because we started the song all over and I didn’t even know it and the other kids did and in PE, the kids sometimes goof around in sports and it’s very frustrating. And every time I tell them to stop, they say ‘don’t tell me what to do.’ It’s just frustrating and the teacher doesn’t do anything about it and in cooking, the kids in my group stall around sometimes and they eat some of the food we need to make something and it’s very frustrating. It would be nice if everyone listened, did stuff right like playing games by the rules without breaking them and people being nice to everybody but that will never happen so that is why I like being by myself because there is no one there to get me mad.”
“Aren’t you lonely?” asked Elizabeth.
I shook my head. “Neah and not back to my father. No matter what I do, he’ll always be mad at me even if I wash his car , mow the lawn, water the flowers, clean out the litter box, pick up dog poop, do the laundry, wash the floors, vacuum the carpets, do the dishes, and even if I had a job and a driver’s license. He’ll always be mad at me. He thinks I’m stupid and every time my mom says I’m not, he says I’m retarded then. One time I was picking up our broken cookie jar and my father slapped my hands and told me hands off, I could cut myself and under his breath he added ‘dumb teenager.’ I try to do things right but I keep failing. Every time my dad’s around, I feel tense inside because I’m worried I’ll do the wrong moves. I don’t ever feel calm inside when he’s around. I liked him better when he was himself and now that he’s a whole different man, I miss my father and I wish he would come back but I don’t think I’ll ever happen. Do you think I’m stupid?” I asked.
“No,” Elizabeth replied.
“My daddy thinks I am. I can never do anything right. I’m a failure.”
“No you’re not. You’re a kid kids make mistakes and they learn from them.”
“But I’m almost an adult,” I protested. “I’m fifteen.”
“You still have a long ways away to become an adult. Believe me,” said Elizabeth.
“I’m in tenth grade.”
“So.”
“So that means my childhood is about to end.”
“No it isn’t. You have this whole month to be fifteen and the next month and the month after that and then your birth month until your birthday and then you’ll have the whole year to be sixteen and then next year you’ll have a whole year to be seventeen. That’s a long time.”
“It seems like a long time,” I said. “But years go by quickly and that’s why I say my childhood is almost over. Pretty soon I’ll be eighteen.”
“What’s so bad about being eighteen?” asked Elizabeth. “You’ll be able to vote.”
“And I’ll be able to order off of TV,” I added. “And receive the death penalty.”
“The death penalty?” Elizabeth asked. ‘Is that why you’re afraid of getting older.”
“Yes,” I said.
“Why? Did you kill someone?”
“No.”
“Then why are you worried about it?”
“Because what if one day I was in my own house minding my own business and then a bunch of policemen come over and arrest me for something I didn’t do.”
“That’s not going to happen.”
“How do you know?”
“Are you going to kill someone?”
“No.”
“Are you going to break into other people’s houses and take stuff?”
“No.”
“Are you going to steal cars?”
“No.”
“Are you going to shoplift?”
“No.”
“Are you going to write bad checks?”
“No.”
“Are you going to blow up buildings?”
“No.”
“Are you going to rob people?”
“No.”
“Then don’t worry about it. As long as you don’t break any laws, you won’t get arrested.”
“But I thought there were innocent people in prison,” I said. “What if that happens to me?”
“It’s won’t.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I know.”
“Then why are there innocent people in prison and on death row?”
“That’s rare. It won’t happen to you. There are lot of people in this country. There are about two million people in prison and about ten percent of them are innocent.”
“Do you ever think it would be nice if you had special powers?” I asked.
“For what?”
“Have people ever made fun of you or harassed you or stalked you or grabbed you or try to stop you in the hallways so you will be late to class?”
“I got teased when I was little,” Elizabeth replied. “And kids took advantage of me and I would get in trouble.”
“But did you wish you had special powers back then?”
“I don’t remember. How about you?”
“Sometimes I wish I had special powers because kids make fun of me, they tease me, and they try to take advantage of me. They threaten me to do stuff. I tell the principal that stuff but she thinks I deserve all that crap. I have troubles doing school work because it’s too hard. I just can’t keep up what the teachers are saying because I forget the words they say. I have troubles taking notes because the go too fast and I have troubles taking notes while the teachers are talking because I don’t know what to put down and not what to put down and my ears tune out so I don’t hear every single word they say. The principal probably thinks I do all this stuff on purpose. I get so mad when people are mean to me and when some teachers expect me to be perfect. I can’t read other people’s minds, no one can.”
“That is true, no one can read other people’s minds.”
“If I had special powers,” I said. “I would use them to get even with people. I would play mean tricks on them if they were mean to me. I would turn them into something else. I would make myself invisible so people wouldn’t find me. Over the weekend in the middle of the night, my dad came home and started yelling at Mom. I was so scared I stayed in bed and pretended I was still asleep. Kelly and Matthew were scared too. Kelly laid in bed crying and Matthew hid under his blankets.”
“I would be scared too if my parents were up in the middle of the night screaming,” said Elizabeth.
“And when my dad was through yelling, he left the house and didn’t come home till nine in the morning. Mom refused to tell us what happened between them two and when Dad came home, we asked him what happened and all of a sudden he got mad at Mom. He started yelling at her and then he started yelling about me. I get so sick and tired of my parents yelling about me and when my mother disagreed about me being a loser, my dad got really angry so he shoved her against the refrigerator and yelled at her some more about me and then he accused me of being retarded and Mom disagreed with that too so my dad pointed out that I wear diapers and Mom told him retarded people don’t wear them and the reason why I do is because I was in a car accident and then he told my mom that it was her fault but when she started to cry, my dad got angrier and said he had two babies in his house now instead of one. I really want to quit wearing them but I’m afraid it’s impossible because the doctor said I will never be able to go to the bathroom again.”
“My daughter wears them too,” said Elizabeth. “if it makes you feel any better and she doesn’t mind wearing them at all.”
“A little,” I said. “Why does she wear them?”
“She has cerebral palsy.”
“That’s different,” I pointed out. “Because people can see why she wears them. “She’s probably in a wheelchair, walker, or crutches.”
“She’s in a wheelchair and she also uses a walker.”
“So what happened to her anyway? Was she in a car wreck or something?” I asked.
“No, she got it when she was being born and for some reason not enough oxygen came to her head and she started occupational therapy at five months,” Elizabeth replied.
“Does she wear underwear too?’ I asked.
“Sometimes but she feels more comfortable wearing a diaper because she has accidents and she doesn’t like getting them on her clothes and furniture.”
“Isn’t it annoying for her to take her diaper off to go potty and the put it back on but the tapes won’t stick?”
“She doesn’t wear those kind of diapers. She wears the ones that pull up and down. They’re pull ups.”
“Well at least she gets to wear underwear and I don’t,” I complained. “I hate myself, I wish my parents had a gun so I can take it out and shoot myself.”
“Hey, don’t say that,” said Elizabeth. “There are good people out there that care about you. Your mother, your brothers, your sister, your friends, and other good people. Don’t let your problem want you to end your life. It won’t do you any good.”
“Yes it will. At least I wouldn’t have to wear diapers because I’ll be living in another lifespan.”
“Your family would miss you and so will your friends.”
“At least my mom and dad wouldn’t have to go to the store like every other two weeks buying me diapers,” I said. “They don’t bother with cloth ones because they don’t want to wash a bunch of dirty diapers and every time we have a bunch of friends or guests over for lunch or dinner, we use paper plates, paper cups, and plastic silverware so we wouldn’t have to wash a bunch of dishes and my sister sometimes teases me so I don’t think she cares about me. She calls me names, makes fun of me, and treats me badly.”
“That’s normal for brothers and sisters,” said Elizabeth. “My two older brothers used to tease me when I was a kid and I was mean to my little sister.”
“How many brothers and sisters do you have?” I asked.
“Just two brothers and one sister.”
“Just like me,” I said. “What did you do to your sister that was mean?”
“Well let me think,” Elizabeth thought for a moment. “I used to play mean tricks on her. I would hide her stuff, make up stories to scare her, I would pretend to take food off her plate and I did a bunch of other stuff.”
“What would you parents do about it?”
“Oh they wouldn’t do anything about it. They ignored us. Only time they would do something about it is if we were being psychical.”
“That’s funny, my brothers, sister and I aren’t ever mean to each other.”
“That only happens in some families.”
“My mom was very mean to her little brother when she was a kid because she was very unhappy. Every day she had to get up at the same time every morning. She had to eat the certain same meals on a different day of the week, watch the same TV shows, play with the same toys and do the same stuff. Her life was boring and she was getting tortured by her own autistic brother-“
“Oh I didn’t know he was autistic,” Elizabeth interrupted.
“I know and if there were a change like someone coming up on our doorstep, he would throw a big tremendous temper tantrum and the screaming would hurt my mother’s ears and she would get very scared so one day my mom decided to play a game. She would enjoy watching her brother scream. She would go in his room and move stuff around, change TV channels on him, and make a lot of noise to hurt his ears. She did a lot of mean other stuff to him and she would get in trouble but all it did was it got her madder and she would think of a better way to be meaner. She only did that when he got in her way by getting away with stuff. He would eat with his hands and eat off of other peoples plates, he was allowed to touch buttons, he was allowed to throw stuff, break stuff, wander off, that’s all I can think of. Today my mom’s brothers and sisters think my mom had the guts to stand up for her rights and theirs too. She had the guts to be mean. Their lives wouldn’t be easier without her and when they told my mom that, she asked them why were they never mean to him and they told her they were afraid of getting in trouble but she had the guts to do it no matter how many times she got in trouble and she would beat her brother for it when she had the chance to no matter how long it took her. Her parents would have him locked up in his room so my mom wouldn’t hurt him and that gave her brothers and sisters a chance to have fun by doing stuff they wanted to do. My mom had her chance to do her stuff too. My mom was one of the ten kids in her family.”
Elizabeth’s eyes grew wide. “Ten kids? Holy mackerel. That’s a lot of kids.”
“Yep, my mom had four sisters and five brothers. Two of them were twins. My mother knew all along that her parents could have tried teaching her brother manners and not be violent and not let him have his way and today they think it’s their fault my mother hates him so much and thinks autistic people are violent and dangerous. She doesn’t even want us around them because she’s afraid we’ll get hurt or get in trouble for defending ourselves because that stuff happened to her when she was a kid.”
“Okay, I think I’ve heard enough,” said Elizabeth. “Thanks for sharing that story but technically you’re here to talk about you and your issues, not about your mother but that was very interesting.”
“If it’s so interesting, then why don’t you want to hear the rest?”
“Because I’m getting paid to help you about your problems, not for you to talk about you mother’s problems she had when she was a kid.”
“I know but it’s so interesting. Every time I tell that story to other kids, they think it’s funny but very few of them think it’s mean because they know about autism. Do you think my mom was mean?”
‘I don’t know. I really don’t have an opinion,” Elizabeth replied.
“Do you think it’s possible I can be potty trained?” I asked changing the subject back to me.
“I don’t know, that’s a good question.”
“I bet my dad would be really happy if he found out I want to be potty trained but everyone keeps telling me it’s impossible, even Allie says it even though she has ADD and my sister says I have to learn to cope with it.”
“She is right, you do and even your mom says that.”
“Allie told me I can still have a normal life.”
“You can,” said Elizabeth.
“She told me she has a normal life even though she has ADD because she likes to do sports, she plays games, talks on the phone to her friends, writes emails, she babysits with her friends, goes on the internet, chats online with her friends, and she even baby sits her little brother and sister sometimes.”
“My daughter leaned to cope with her disability and I think you can learn how to cope with yours.”
“I have a disability?” I asked stunned.
“Oops, wrong word. Like I was saying, you can still have a normal life. You’re got friends, you and Allie have a very good relationship, you have nice girls on your soccer team, your little brother and sister have had friends at your house that liked you and were nice to you and played with you.”
“How do you know all that stuff?” I asked.
“Your mother told me.”
“Do you really think I have a disability?”
“I don’t think your diapers count as a disability because they don’t stop you from doing the same stuff other people can do. Only time they stop you from doing that stuff is if you let them.”
“I’m going to ask you a question and I want you to be honest,” I stood up. “Does it look like I’m wearing a diaper?”
I asked.
Elizabeth studied my bottom. “No,” she replied.
“Be serious,” I said.
“No seriously, you don’t.”
“Can’t you even see my butthole?” I turned around.
“No.”
“See, you can definitely tell I have a diaper on. Why do you think people look at me?”
“Are you sure they aren’t looking at you because you’re pretty?”
“Yes.”
“You can actually read their minds?”
“No.”
“Then how do you know what they’re thinking?”
“Because I just know. People are always looking at me. I walk by them and they turn their heads to keep looking at me.”
“Natalie, when people look at you, don’t assume they’re looking at you because you wear diapers. People look at me too and at my husband and two kids.”
“Does it happen all the time?” I asked.
“I don’t know. I don’t pay any attention.”
“I see people look at me all the time even if I’m like two hundred feet away.”
“This happens to everybody when they’re just standing somewhere and about ten feet away, they see someone looking toward their direction and it looks like that person is looking at them but really that person is looking at something else that’s towards that direction. Maybe that’s what you notice a lot but you’re assuming they’re looking at you.”
“When they look at my bottom, yeah,” I said.
“People don’t go around looking at other people’s bottoms. Only you do it. You need to stop obsessing about toilets, underwear, and about people being potty trained. You can’t go around looking at other people’s bottoms ‘cause you know why?”
“No.”
“Because you’re spilling the beans on yourself when you do that. Do you know what spill the beans means?”
I shook my head.
“It means that when you look at their bottoms, they’ll look back at yours and yes, they will notice you’re probably wearing a diaper,” Elizabeth explained. “For example you notice a little girl staring at your feet. What would you do?”
“Look at her feet,” I replied.
“Right. That’s how we respond to each other. That’s how our brains work. Now I’m going to show you something.” Elizabeth stood up and threw her fist in front of my face.
My eyes blinked.
“Now tell me what just happened?” she asked.
“I blinked my eyes,” I replied.
“Right. Do you know why?”
“No.”
“Because you were responding to an object that came to your face really fast. Now try me.”
I threw my fist in front of her face.
Elizabeth’s eyes blinked. “See what happened. It’s funny how our brains respond to that movement. We can’t control it.”
“I wonder why that happens?” I asked.
“I don’t know. It’s how our brains work and by the way, we’re out of time so I’ll see you next week and Wednesday at the same time.”
Elizabeth and I stood up and left her office. Mom was sitting in the waiting room looking at a Parenting magazine. She looked up and smiled. “Hi, how did it go?”
“Okay,” I said.
Elizabeth started to talk to Mom indistinctively. Mom opened her purse and took out the keys and gave them to me. She told me to go out and wait in the car and she’ll be there in a sec.
As I was halfway out the door, I heard Elizabeth and Mom talking. For some reason I knew they were talking about me so I went back and listened.
“I told her my daughter wears them too and she is not alone,” I heard Elizabeth saying.
“I just think my daughter needs to learn how to cope with them,” I heard Mom saying next.
I couldn’t understand the rest they were saying.
“My husband’s been having a real difficult time lately this month,” I heard Mom say. “I think my daughter is probably right, he’s probably been drinking. He leaves work and goes to the bar instead. I wonder if work’s been stressing him. He should talk to his boss and maybe he will give him some time off so he could relax instead of coming home yelling and screaming at us emotionally abusing us just because my children are making mistakes and blaming a lot of it on me just because I’m the parent. I think I’m going to have a little talk with him next time he has that kind of behavior. Him and I are going to have to find a way to work things out because if we don’t, it might get worse.”
After they were done talking, tried to hide but they saw me.
“Natalie, I thought I told you to wait out in the car,” said Mom.
“I was going to but then I got distracted by you guys talking,” I replied.
“I told you to wait out there so you wouldn’t listen to us.”
As I left the room I heard Mom reply, “eight years.”
Elizabeth must have asked her how long I’ve been in diapers.
After we left the building , we got in the car.
“So what did you think of your first appointment?” Mom asked as we pulled onto the road.
“Okay,” I replied.
“What did you two talk about?”
God sometimes Mom is so nosy.
“What do you think?” I asked sarcastically.
Mom took it literally. “Um I think you talked about your diapers and how much you hate them. What else? Um I think you talked about your father and how much you think he hates you. What else did you two talk about?”
I shrugged.
“C’mon, you heard what we said so I think I should know what you said,” said Mom.
“Mom, I didn’t hear the whole thing, honest,” I said. “All I heard was you telling her I needed to cope with diapers.”
“You do,” said Mom.
“And you telling her about my father,” I finished.
“See, going to counseling wasn’t that bad was it,” said Mom.
“No it wasn’t,” I replied. “But at least it was fun talking to someone but still I’m not sure if I belong there.”
‘Maybe you don’t. I’m just taking you to see one because I’m trying to be a good parent. That’s all because you’ve been wanting to kill yourself and you’ve been hurting people.”
“So.”
“Oh let’s stop here,” said Mom as she turned on the car signal. We parked in front of an old building and got out of the car and locked it.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
Mom pointed at the building in front of us. “In there.”
“Rat Place,” I read. “What is this place? What do they sell? Rats?” I joked.
“No, they sell antiques, electronics, and a bunch of other stuff,” Mom corrected.
“Mom, I was joking,” I said.
We went in the building and looked around. The building was three stories high. I was in the toy section looking at the old 101 Dalmatians Happy Meal toys on the second floor. I looked at the other toys too. There were some Strawberry Shortcake toys, Polly Pockets, old Barbie dolls, Fisher Price toys, action figures, and books. As I looked at the puzzles, I spotted Barney sitting on the shelf with other stuffed animals.
“Hey lady, come give me a big hug,” he said.
Oh shut the fuck up.
I walked over to him and ticked him in the eye.
I went back to the puzzles and looked at them some more. Then I saw a Barney puzzle.
“Come give me a big hug,” he said.
I buried the puzzle under a bunch of other puzzles.
I looked at the books until I spotted a Barney book.
“Come give me a big hug,” he said.
I threw the book.
After I was done looking at the toys, I looked at some old magazines. As I was looking at a Parenting one, I saw an ad of a toy Barney instrument for little kids. “Come give me a big huh,” said Barney. I threw the magazine down. Can I have some fun being in this store without having to see that green and purple t-rex? Everywhere I look, there he is in front of my face.
I went to the third floor to see what was up. It was just old furniture. I’m not interested looking at furniture. I never was.
I went back to the first floor and looked around some more.
At the checkout counter I saw a bunch of old video games on the shelf behind it. The lady gave them to me to look at. I looked at the Super Nintendo games and Sega Genesis games.
“How much do these cost?” I asked.
The lady pointed at the video game prices on the counter.
Atari games 25c
Nes Games 75c
Super NES games $1.50
Sega Master Games $ 95c
Sega Genesis games $1.00
Nintendo 64 games $5.00-$10.00
Playstation games $3.00
Sega CD games $2.00
Sega Saturn games $4.00
Game Boy games $1.00-$7.00
“Why are these games cheap?” I asked.
“Because we’re trying to get rid of them,” the lady replied.
I saw Barney Hide N’ Seek game with the other Sega games.
“Come give me a big hug,” he said.
“Ew,” I said.
I slammed the game down on the counter with the label facing down.
“Whoa, be careful with these games,” the lady warned. “Or you’ll be buying them.”
“Oh sorry,” I said. “I just don’t like Barney that’s all.”
“Well be careful.”
Then something touched me on my right shoulder.
I jumped a little bit inside. It was only Mom’s hand.
“Hey what did you find?” she asked.
“Video games,” I replied.
“We’re selling them for cheap because we have too many of them,” said the lady.
“And here are the prices right here,” I pointed.
Mom looked at them.
“Oh wow,” she said. “Maybe my daughter can help. Find what you want Natalie.”
I was shocked. I thought Dad said he and Mom aren’t going to buy us anymore video games.
“Really?” I said. “I thought dad said you guys weren’t going to buy us anymore video games but I’m glad you guys changed your mind.”
“That’s because video games cost a lot of money but these games here aren’t a lot. A dollar fifty for a video game? That’s very cheap.”
“Do these games work?” I asked the lady.
“I don’t know but they’ve been cleaned and tested so they should work.”
“Maybe you should only get one,” said Mom.
“Mom,” I said.
“Some of these games might not work so I don’t want to waste any money.”
“These games are guaranteed. Everything in this store is. If you buy something and it doesn’t work, you can take it back,” said the lady.
I picked out some video games.
“How about if someone bought something here and decided he or she didn’t like it or decided it wasn’t worth having, can he or she return it?” Mom asked.
“Oh sure. They’re all guaranteed nonetheless.”
“How many days do we have to return it?”
“Five.”
“Five. That’s not very long.”
“I know. That’s the owner’s decision. I don’t make the rules.”
“Did you find what you want Natalie,” Mom asked.
“Yeah. I found Revolution X, Barbie Super Model, Battletoads/Double Dragon, James Bond, Bart Simpson’s Nightmare, Fun N Games, Pinocchio, and Pac-Man,” I replied.
The lady added up all the games. “Okay that’ll be nine dollars and fifty cents please?”
“Oooo I have just enough money,” said Mom.
She opened her purse and gave the lady her ten dollar bill.
The lady put the money in the cash register and gave Mom back two quarters.
“Thank you,” she said.
“Have a nice evening,” said the lady.
Mom and I went out to the car.
“What do you say Natalie?” Mom asked after we got in.
“Huh, thank you?” I guessed.
“You’re welcome.”
I got the answer right.