Gramps - Chapter 8

 

Gramps

By Karen Singer

 

Chapter 8

 

Just when you think the world is going to settle down and everything is going to stop changing on you, it changes.  Yeah, of course it did.  Courtesy of my dear sweet, diabolical, and cruel granddaughter Kimmie.  The woman I loved so much that I was going to murder her as soon as I got the chance.

Saturday morning, I was watching a TV show discussing the college football games that would be played that afternoon.  Some of which I was very much looking forward to seeing.  While I was doing that, Kimmie was at the kitchen table doing…something.  I didn’t know what and didn’t care.  I was happy just as long as she stayed away from me!  But of course, she didn’t.

“Gramps!” she called.  “Come here a minute.”

I pulled my overly large pacifier from my mouth and called back, “Why can’t you come here?  I’m watching this.”

“Give it a rest for a while and get in here.”

I groaned, several times, and mumbled, “Can’t even watch TV in peace!” as I got out of my chair to see what she wanted.  She was doing her nails at the kitchen table.  Something that didn’t surprise me since for a Phys Ed teacher, she seemed to be overly fond of either doing her nails herself, or paying to have them done.  “Date tonight?” I asked, sarcastically.

She looked up at me and smiled.  “Yes!  How did you know?”

I hadn’t.  And if she had a date it was certainly news to me.  “I didn’t,” I replied.  “I was just wondering.”

“Yeah well, this guy is one I’ve been out with a few times now.”  She looked up at me.  “I like him.  He’s nice.”

“Good for you,” I told her.  Maybe he would keep her out of my hair for a while.  In fact, maybe he would marry her and keep her out of my hair forever.

She motioned toward one of the seats.  “Sit for bit,” she said.

“Kimmie, I’m trying to watch this.”

“Gramps,” she said exasperatedly.  “You know perfectly well that none of what they’re saying is going to matter in the least as to who wins and who loses today.”

“But it’s still interesting,” I argued as I watched her blowing on her nails to dry them.

“Sit!” she ordered, pointing at the chair again.

“Why?”

“Because I want to do your nails.”

I was shocked!  “You what?”

“I want to do your nails now.  So sit!”

“No!  Kimmie where do you get all these stupid ideas?”

“Gramps!  Sit!  I’m going to do your nails whether you like it or not.”

“Hell no!” I told her as I turned and started to walk away.

“Would you rather I put a dress on you and take you shopping instead?  You need some new dresses to wear anyway.”

I stopped and turned toward her, horrified!  “You what?”

“You haven’t been out of this house all week!  It’ll be good for you to get out and do some shopping.  And I have no doubt that with all my clothes upstairs, I can come up with some kind of interesting outfit for you to wear.  And just think, if we’re going out, then you can finally have something covering your diaper for a change, even though it will be some kind of skirt.  So wouldn’t that be good?”

I’m sure my mouth was hanging open in disbelief.  “Oh hell no,” I breathed.

“Gramps,” she said.  “It’s either that, or you sit yourself down right here and let me do your nails.  Then you can spend the rest of the day watching the games on TV.  But believe me, I’d much rather take you shopping.  I think buying you some pretty new clothes would be so much fun.  Don’t you think?”

The horror of the idea was simply too much for me.  In a daze, I sat down at the table.  She reached out and grabbed one of my hands and pulled it up in front of her.  A moment later, she was filing the nails on that hand.  “Why are you doing this?” I chanced asking.

“Because I think it’ll make your hands and fingers look nicer.”

“There’s nothing wrong with them!”

“Gramps.  They can always look prettier.”

“But I don’t want then to look prettier!”

“Tough!” she said.  “Besides, when we go grocery shopping tomorrow, I’d like to have something different for the girls to see.”

I was shocked.  “The girls?”

“Yes.  I have no doubt that Loraine and Judy will be there again.  Possibly a bunch of other girls from the school too.”

How deep can shock actually go?  “Other girls?”

“Yes.  Of course.  You don’t think that those two girls you met last week were going to keep it to themselves do you?  They already asked me if I was taking you shopping again this week.”

“Let me guess.  You told them yes.”

“Well, of course.  I can’t lie to them about it.”

Lying would have been just fine with me.  “Let’s shop somewhere else then.”

She giggled.  “Don’t be ridiculous.  It’ll be fun.”

“For who?”  Then a thought occurred to me.  “Wait a minute!” I said.  “Does everyone in that school of yours know?”

“Probably,” she said.  “Like I told you, you can’t expect girls like Judy and Loraine to keep something like that a secret, and I didn’t ask them to.  They’d never do it anyway Gramps.”

Juuuussst great!  Then another horrible thought hit me.  “How about anyone else?”

What do you mean?” she asked.

“Does anyone else know about what we do?”

“Like who?”

I was starting to feel a bit better.  “Like how about anyone in our family.”

“Oh,” she said.  “They all know.”

“They what?”

“Well, I told Mom of course, and you know her, she told everyone else.”

“Everyone knows?”

“Yes.  Didn’t you just ask that?”

“Oh Kimmie…”  I could just kill her!

“Mom thinks it’s hilarious,” she said, “but Keith, my brother, thinks I should be taken out and shot.”

“I’m with Keith,” I said, still trying to digest the news that everyone in the family knew about what I’ve…we’ve…been doing.

She giggled.  “Mom thinks we should hold a baby shower for you.”

I was aghast.  “A…Kimmie!”

“Well, it’s her idea.”  She stared at me for a moment noticing the sudden thoughtful look on my face, then asked, “What is it?”

“I’m just wondering,” I said, “why I haven’t heard from anyone else in the family lately.  Nobody, not even your mother, has bothered to call me.”

“Oh,” she said.  “They all decided it would be better if they didn’t, since it would probably only embarrass you.”

“That much is certainly true.”

“I wonder what a baby shower for someone like you would be like.”

I could have hit her, but she was still holding my hand and was using a dangerous implement on it.  An implement that I was convinced was already causing me more pain than it was supposed to.

A few hours later, I never would have believed it.  I never would have even thought about it.  In fact, I never expected to come across the situation.  But did you know that it’s more humiliating to sit in your own chair and watch football games on TV, while you’ve got pink nail polish decorating your fingers?  I never would have believed it, but it’s true.  I know because I eventually found myself in that situation.

Yeah, the diapers on display and everything else was bad enough, but for some reason adding the pink nail polish seemed to be like putting the icing on the cake.  I sat there feeling squeamish through most of the game.  My best defense for it was to keep my hands under my fleece blanket as much as possible where I couldn’t see them.  But I couldn’t keep them there all the time since Kimmie delivered another baby bottle to me with more of her favorite sports drink in it.  I couldn’t seem to not see those pink fingernails the entire time I held that bottle to my lips and drank, even though I was trying desperately to only look at the game on TV.

One of these days, I really was going to kill that girl.

Aaaannnd…of course it hit me…or happened…or something.  And of course, you know what that something was.  Yeah, you’re right.  At some point, in fact, shortly after the first college game started, I had no choice but to mess my diaper.  Or is it more correct to say I messed in my diaper.  I guess it doesn’t matter.  Either way, it’s exactly the same smelly situation.  Oh, trust me, I fought with it for a while, but after days on end of being stuck wearing and going in my diapers, there was simply no sense in fighting with it too long.

I contemplated getting out of my chair to do it like I usually did, and I started to do just that, but with Kimmie in the house I didn’t want to call too much attention to what would be going on back there in my diaper.  So before the pressure got too bad, under the cover of my fleece blanket, I raised my diapered butt up off the chair and let it all out, pushing at the end to make sure it was all out of me and in the diaper where I could deal with it…soon! 

Ugh!  Relief one way, but a worse problem now another way.  I gingerly let my bottom back down into the chair and checked what was happening with the game.  Not a lot.  And it was only the first quarter, which meant that it was the best time I could see to get rid of my messy and smelly diaper.  Also gingerly, I slowly let the footrest on my recliner down, trying not to squish my bottom any worse than things already were back there.  I pulled the fleece blanket off me and got to my feet.

“Gramps!” Kimmie’s voice called from the kitchen.  “Where are you going?  The game just started.”

No use denying it.  “To change!” I said somewhat pointedly.

In two shakes she was stomping into the living room.  “Sit your ass back down in that chair.  You’re not changing yet.”

“Hell no,” I told her.  “Kimmie, I’m a mess.  Not to mention I’m going to start smelling to high heaven pretty soon, especially without any plastic pants on.”

“Tough shit!” she argued back.  “From now on I don’t want you changing before two o’clock in the afternoon, every day!”

“Say what?  That’s just stupid.  Why?”

“Because those diapers can handle it and they’re expensive, for one.”

“That’s two reasons, not one,” I pointed out.  “And I don’t care about either one.”

“And I don’t care that you don’t care!  Now sit back down.  I’ll tell you when you can change.”

“But Kimmie, two o’clock?  That’s a long time.”

She smiled that wicked smile of hers and I wondered how she physically managed to do it.  “Yes, it is.  Get used to it.  From now on, you get one diaper in the morning, one at two o’clock, and then you get changed into your night diaper at nine o'clock.  For now.”

I wanted to know what ‘for now’ meant, but was afraid to ask.

“Tell you what,” she said.  If you’re nice, I’ll put off changing you until halftime in the game, or until the game’s over, but either way, I’m not changing you even one minute before two.  So don’t even try to make it sooner.”

I was going to ask how she was going to stop me if I still decided to head to the bathroom to change, but I already could see that she was prepared to physically fight me over it.  I knew without trying who would win that battle.  She wasn’t the one wheezing after just one trip walking around the backyard every day.  I was.

She pointed at my recliner again.  “Sit!  And enjoy your game.  You’re lucky I let you watch them every week.”

“Lucky?  With a full diaper?”

“Yes!  I could make you watch little kid’s shows on that TV instead.  And I already know how to program it so you can’t watch anything else.”  Her expression changed to one of mock delight.  “Would you like me to do that for you?  Wouldn’t that be great?  It would be perfect for all your fantasies.  Shall I?”

Instead of answering, I glared angrily at her and backed up to my chair.  Slowly, gingerly, horribly, I sat my body down.  Carefully, gingerly, I leaned back and raised the footrest.  Then I pulled my blanket over my bare legs and body…and pink fingernails.  She stood there staring at me as if daring me to get up, which I wasn’t going to do.  Finally, she walked off, back into the kitchen.

Yuck!  I squirmed my messy bottom around a bit trying to get more comfortable in all that mush.  It didn’t take long before I realized that things were about as good as they were going to get…until Kimmie decided I could have a fresh diaper.

I tried to concentrate on the game, but it was more difficult than ever.  First the pink fingernails, now my messy bottom.  And I just knew I would have to sit there and endure an ever-increasing smell before long, with no way out!  My fleece blanket was quicky becoming more important to me than ever.  Just to add insult to injury, two minutes after getting settled again in my chair, I wet my diaper.  But the truth was, that was quickly becoming less and less interesting to me.  I was already that used to doing it.

Concentrate on the game.  Concentrate on the game.  It was difficult, but I tried, and somewhat succeeded.  But thoughts about why did Kimmie have to tell everyone about what we did, why did Kimmie insist on painting my nails, and why was Kimmie making me wait until two o’clock for a fresh diaper continued to fill my mind.  And that’s on top of why was she forcing me to wear the diapers anyway, not to mention not letting me wear anything over them when I was home…which was ninety-nine percent of the time…if not more.

And then Kimmie was there again, handing me another baby bottle full of her favorite sports drink.  I said nothing.  I just pulled my pink fingernailed hand out from under the blanket and took the bottle.  She stood there watching until I put the thing to my lips and started drinking, then she walked off.  Darn girl!

I went back to trying to concentrate on the game, this time while drinking a baby bottle with my pink fingernails.  When the bottle was done, I gratefully put it aside and stuck my hands back under the blanket where I wouldn’t have to see them.  Concentrate on the game.  Concentrate!  Yeah, despite the fact that I had peed just a little bit ago, now with all that fresh liquid in my system, I could already tell I would be peeing again soon.  Juuussst great!

And then Kimmie was back.  Not again!  But all she did was to lean over and shove one of my huge pacifiers in my mouth before walking away.  I would have killed her, but I was trying desperately to concentrate on the game, and it was becoming increasingly more difficult with every minute that passed.  Just like the odor surrounding me was becoming increasingly more noticeable.  And you already know it wasn’t a good odor.  With little choice, I did my best to put up with it.

As the game clock counted down to halftime, I checked the clock on the wall more often.  Unfortunately, I could tell that my diaper change wasn’t going to happen at halftime.  When halftime started, I checked the clock again.  Nope!  Halftime would be long over before I got my diaper changed.  Now, did I want to wait for the game to be over, or just let her change me at two.  That question was easy to answer.  I wanted out of that messy, smelly diaper.  Two o’clock couldn’t come fast enough!

The game was well into the third quarter when Kimmie came back.  “Gramps, do you want your diaper changed now, or would you rather wait till the end of the game?”

“Now!” I tried to say with that huge plug in my mouth, but what came out was more like, “Ehh!”

“What?”

Instead of answering, as fast as I could, I got rid of my blanket and got out of my chair.  I pulled the pacifier from my mouth.  “Now!”

She giggled.  She actually giggled!  Darn girl.  “Come on,” she said.  “Let’s get you changed…baby.”

Ugh!  But at least she was changing me.  Fifteen minutes later, I was back in my chair that Kimmie had sprayed with air freshener for me, trying to catch up on what I had missed in the game.  Two scores.  Two!  In that short time I had been gone.  And Kimmie had kept me from seeing them.  Yeah, one of these days I really was going to kill her.  Still, I figured the fresh new diaper was better than waiting until the end of the game to get it.  A lot better!

I enjoyed the rest of the game in relative peace, if you didn’t count two more baby bottles and getting that pacifier shoved back in my mouth between them.

Oh, and in case you’re wondering which pink was brighter and more noticeable, my pink sneakers or my pink fingernails.  Trust me, those super bright pink sneakers won out by a mile.  Although I did have to wonder if the pink sneakers made my pink fingernails more noticeable than they already were.  I didn’t really want an answer to that question.  I was too afraid of the answer.