Snow Days and More

Chapter 1
Part One

It was the perfect day for sledding. Almost a foot of snow had fallen the night before, school was canceled, and Mom had told me I could go to Knob Hill, the small semi-official sledding hill near my house. This was a change from previous winters, when she would deny me the privilege of going to Knob Hill. She said I was too young, and then last year, when I was ten and I pleaded I was old enough, she used the excuse of me being too small. I had to sit in my yard as my friends all went to Knob Hill with their tubes and sleds and snowboards.

And so, that morning, when I asked Mom if I could go to the Hill with my friends Jay and Frankie, and she said yes, I about popped off the ceiling. I called Jay and told him the excellent news, and went about getting my gear together.

I dressed in boxers, thermal underwear that Mom insisted I wear, then jeans and a sweatshirt, thick wooly socks, and then my snowsuit. It wasn’t a ’cool’ snowsuit like my friends had, ski pants and a heavy coat. It was more juvenile than that. It was a blue and black one-piece snowsuit like a little kid would wear, and when I saw it, I almost told Mom no. That I wouldn’t wear it. But the call of Knob Hill was too strong. So I put it on, and then Mom helped me get mittens and a snow hat on, the kind that covers the ears and Velcro-closes under the chin. My snow boots went on then, and Mom told me she wanted me home for lunch, no later. It was 8:45, so I knew I had hours of sledding fun ahead. I grabbed my new sled, the one Uncle Carl had made for me, and met Jay and Frankie at the end of my driveway.

We laughed and joked and threw snowballs at each other as we trudged the quarter-mile up Paul Rd. to the Hill. When we got there, the fun commenced. Up and down that awesome hill we went, racing the older kids, having snowball fights on the way down, pretending we were fighter pilots in a downhill dogfight, pretty much just having a blast in the snow. We were all cold, but it was a small price to pay. As for me, I was in Heaven. I had heard how much fun the Hill was in the snow, and finally got the chance to see for myself. I did get teased a little for my snowsuit and hat, but not bad. One older boy even had a suit similar to mine.

At about 11:30, I told my friends I had to head home, and collected my sled. Halfway home, I felt the need, a growing pressure in my bladder, and began to run. Running wasn’t easy in the snowsuit, though. I felt big and clunky, like the Michelin Man. I got to the driveway, and dropped my sled in the yard, shuffling as fast as I could up the steps to the front door. Mom met me there.

"Basement door, Nick," she said. "You can’t drip snow-water all through the house."

"Mom, I really gotta go," I said behind chattering teeth, which were chattering not just from the cold air.

"Well then get to the basement door, Nicolas, and hurry," she said, shutting the door. I hustled as fast as I could down the porch steps, and around the corner to the garage. I hustled through the garage door, and to the basement door, Mom already waiting for me there.

I bounced from toe to toe, fighting my need with all my energy, as Mom helped me out of the soaked snowsuit and boots. Freed from it’s bulkiness, I fairly tore past her and up the steps to the first floor, to the small bathroom across the door at the top of the stairs.

I was halfway done with getting my jeans down when I lost the fight. At first a drop escaped, then the whole dam burst, and I flooded my pants with warm pee. I let out a sob as I wet my pants, now knowing how Mom would react. Actually, I had a pretty good idea, and wasn’t looking forward to it.

My need no longer urgent, I slowly stripped out of the wet clothes, down to my boxers, and bundled the mass of clothes up, dropping them off in the laundry room, right outside the door of the bathroom. Mom was in the kitchen, to my left, and I tried to sneak by her, tried to get down the short hallway to the stairs that led to the second floor, but she spotted me.

"Nick, any reason you’re naked?" she asked behind me, making me freeze. I was trembling like a leaf as I turned to her.

"I’m not naked, Mom, I have boxers on," I tried. "I’m just gonna go up to my room and put dry clothes on."

"Your jeans weren’t wet, Nick. Why do you need dry...Nick, you didn’t!" I just hung my head as Mom went towards the small area that made up the hall to the downstairs bathroom and the laundry area. She saw the pile of clothes there, and lifted the jeans up, the thermal pants still inside them. I had pulled them off as a unit. She only needed one look, and she dropped the pants, turning to me.

"Nick, what did I tell you? What did I say was going to happen if you peed your pants again?"

"That you’d treat me like a baby, Mom," I answered. "But it wasn’t my fault, honest. I told you I had to go, and taking that snowsuit off took too long."

"Maybe. But a big boy can hold it for a few minutes until he can get to a bathroom to potty. Nick, this is the fifth accident this week, and it’s always a different excuse. There was a line at the boys bathroom. The teacher wouldn’t let you go. The bus was stuck in traffic. It’s always something else. Well, Nicky, Mommy’s had it up to here with you."

She held her hand over her head to indicate how fed up she was, and then told me to go up to my room, then take a shower to clean up. While I was in the shower, Mom poked her head into my bathroom.

"When you’re done, Nicholas, meet me in my room, do you understand me?"

"Yes, Mom," I said, sadly. She shut the door, and I used up the last of the hot water, prolonging what I knew Mom was going to do to me. I figured she was going to spank me and send me to bed early. Like, real early. It was a little after 12:30 in the afternoon when I shut the water off and dried off, heading to my room to get dressed. Mom was standing in her doorway, down the hall, and when she saw me heading to my room, she made a tsk tsk sound.

"Nick, I told you when you were done with the shower to come to my room, not go to yours. Now get down here, boy."

"Mom, let me get dressed first," I argued.

"Now, Nick."

So I trudged down the hall in my towel, cold and fearful. Into Mom’s room I went, and she lifted me up onto her bed. I hated when she picked me up, too. It made me feel so much younger then I was. I mean, I know I’m small, but Mom had agreed to not pick me up or carry me anymore.

Sitting next to me on the bed, Mom looked down on me, and began her lecture.

"Nick, I don’t get you, boy. You claim to be a big boy. You tell any and every one who’ll listen that just because you look like a six-year-old, you aren’t a six-year-old. You get into these stupid little fights at school. Your grades are abominable. How in the hell does someone fail gym? Tell me, Nick, how do you fail a class where all you have to do is show up and wear some gym clothes and just act like you care?"

"It’s the gym teacher, Mom, Coach Fox. She’s so mean. She doesn’t care that I’m small, Mom, she grades me like I was normal sized. Like, in the fall, when we had to run the mile. I told her I can’t. She failed me."

"See, that’s just it, Nick. You try to make people look past the fact you’re short, then use that same shortness as an excuse for your failures. And now this pissing your pants thing, and wetting the bed too. What elegant excuse do you have for those?"

"I told you already, none of them were my fault," I started to say and was cut off.

"No, of course not. Nicky, can you tell me, real quick, how the hell there’s a line for the boys room in a school that has three boys rooms, each with stalls and urinals, but only a couple hundred kids total in the school, not all of them boys. There is no way in hell a hundred boys needed to use the bathroom all at the same time. Okay, one may have been full. Go to a different one."

"We can’t, Mom. Sixth graders have to use bathroom two, we can’t use the other ones."

"Fine, that may be. Okay, let’s excuse that one. That leaves four pants-wettings to explain, boy. The other day, you pissed your pants on the bus. Explain it."

"I told you, we got stuck in traffic."

"In this town? Nick, there is no traffic in this town. It’s too damn small. There’s been days, Nick, I’ve gone to the A&P, in the middle of the day, and not seen two other cars on the road."

"It was, Mom, it was traffic. There was this truck in front of us, one of those big moving trucks, and the bus couldn’t get around it. Honest, ask Jay or Frankie."

"Really? Okay, fine, that’s two. What about last week, when you got sent home for peeing in your pants during Science class?"

"Mrs. Engle wouldn’t let me go, Mom. I told her I needed to go bad, but she said we can’t leave during a test. I tired to hold it, I even held hand down there, pressing on myself to keep from wetting. Mrs. Engle told me to stop, that it was nasty to touch myself down there in class. When I took my hand off...well, you know what I did."

"So that’s three semi-valid excuses. I’ll even excuse your little accident today. I remember it can be hard to get out of a wet snowsuit...and you did tell me you needed to go. Fine, so we have four of them excused, Nick. But yesterday? What was the excuse then?"

I had peed my pants watching TV with Mom, never even realizing I had to go, and I thought at light speed to think of an excuse. Only, there wasn’t one.

"Um, I guess I don’t have one for that, Mom," I admitted honestly.

"No, you don’t. And there is no excuse for the bedwetting. I’ve tried the alarm clock method, waking you up at 11:00 and 3:00 to go potty. I’ve limited the amount of soda you drink. No drinks after 7:00, before bedtime. Nothing works. I had hoped the bedwetting was just because Daddy left us. Dr. Wubble (my pediatrician) told me that when events like that happen, children can regress somewhat. But Nick, Daddy left us three years ago, and you haven’t had a dry week yet. At least once a week, you wake up soaked. Well, I spoke to Dr. Wubble a few days ago, told her about your day-wetting. You might have an appointment with her today, but the snow came, and I don’t know if we’re going. It depends on the plow trucks."

"I don’t want to see the doctor, Mom, I hate her. She always takes blood, even when I saw her for my ankle." I had fractured my ankle a year before, and Dr. Wubble made it a point to take a blood sample. For whatever reason.

"Well, I don’t question her, Nick. She’s a doctor, and knows what she’s doing. Maybe, just maybe, Nick, there’s a medical reason for your wetting. Maybe there’s a reason I can’t see. And that’s why the doctor needs to see you. Now, I want you to listen very closely to me. If Dr. Wubble finds nothing wrong with you, Nick, if there is no physical reason for you wetting your pants and bed all the time, I’m going to take a more drastic approach."

"What do you mean, Mom?"

"Well, yesterday, while you were at school, I did a little shopping. I bought a package of diapers, a package of Pull-Ups, and a package of GoodNites."

"I’m not wearing diapers, Mom. I’m not a freaking baby, Mom." I was enraged.

"Really? So it’s normal for an eleven-year-old boy to wet his bed two times a week or more? It’s normal for an eleven-year-old boy to wet his pants five times in a week? Is that big boy behavior or baby behavior?"

"I’ll call Dad if you make me wear diapers, Mom. I’ll make him make you stop."

"Oh that’s rich, Nick. You go on and call Dad. This is, remember, the same person who promised to come pick you up and take you to a Jets game on your birthday last month. The same person who the day of your birthday, called and said he couldn’t take you, because of some social affair his new wife had set up the night before. The same person who promised to let you spend Christmas at his house, and then canceled out of that because Mona decided she didn’t want to spend Christmas here, wanted to go to Aruba instead, and without you. So go on, Nick, call him. Maybe he’ll help you."

I sat there, thinking about what she said. She was right. Dad was a jerk. He had left Mom and I when I was eight, saying he didn’t love Mom anymore, that he had met the woman of his dreams in Mona. I understand divorce. If it was just that, I wouldn’t be so upset about what Dad did. But he never made time for me after he left. It was always Mona-Mona-Mona. She hated me, and I hated her. Still, to prove a point, I took Mom up on her offer to call Dad. I picked up the phone on her bedside table and dialed Dad’s number.

"Young and Rubicam Incorporated, how may I direct your call," I heard the operator at Dad’s office say.

"Mike Dunlap, please."

"One moment...I’m sorry, Mr. Dunlap isn’t in the office today. Would you like his voice mail?"

"No, this is his son, I have his cell phone, thank you."

After hanging up, I called Dad’s cell as Mom looked on. She had a look that said my efforts were useless, that Dad wouldn’t back me up. I had to try anyway,

"Hello?" Dad said when he answered his cell.

"Dad, it’s me. Look, you need to talk to Mom. Seriously. She wants me to wear diapers!"

"Put her on the phone, Nick," he said after a moment, sounding kind of angry. Yes, Dad, way to be! I thought as I handed the phone to Mom.

"Mike? It’s Lyn, you wanted to talk to me?...yes I do plan to...because he needs them...yes he still is...well, he was supposed to today, but the storm came up, and it might get pushed back to tomorrow...well, I’m going to leave that to the doctor...Mike, look at it from my point-of-view, will you? I have extra laundry every day, or every other, I have a bedroom that is slowly starting to smell like a men’s room, and...what?...I tried that...and that...look, I did everything Kathy Wubble told me to try, and none of it works...that’s what the hell I was saying, Mike...right, exactly...right." It sucked only knowing half the conversation, but I could figure most of it out. Mom handed me the phone back, and I got to talk to Dad again.

"Dad? It’s Nick again. So did you tell Mom to stop this?"

"Son, your Mom and I don’t see eye-to-eye on a lot of things. You know that. However, I kind of have to agree with her here."

"DAD! You can’t mean that. You’re going to let her put me in diapers like a baby?"

"No, I never said that. What your Mom and I agreed on was that we go with what Dr. Wubble says tomorrow. I told Mom that if Dr. Wubble can’t find anything wrong with you, physically, then maybe wearing some sort of protection is a good idea. Come on, son, would you rather wake up in a wet bed or a wet diaper?"

"I can’t believe this, Dad? You’re siding with Mom? You of all people are siding with Mom?"

"I’m siding with you, Nick. And I think that this will pass, buddy. Did I ever tell you I used to wet my bed when I was a kid? Yea, I wet my bed until I was about nine or so, and Grandma was so mad at me every time I did it. She wound up putting me in diapers until it stopped. At first I hated it, son, but the first time I woke up wet in the diaper, but still warm in the bed...well, I knew my Mom was right. And in this case, Nick, I think your Mom is right. Look, I have to run. Mona and I are heading to Shawnee."

"Can I come too, Dad? Can you pick me up and take me skiing? I haven’t been skiing with you all winter."

"Sorry, sport, Mona wants to ski with just me today. Maybe next weekend, okay?"

"Yea, fine, whatever Dad, thanks for nothing," I said, suddenly furious and depressed all at the same time. I hung up on him and threw the phone down on the bed. Mom looked on sympathetically, and I pushed her hand away when she tried to reach over to comfort me. I was mad at the world right then, and didn’t want anyone touching me.

After I sat there raging internally for a moment, I got off the bed, and stormed out of Mom’s room, down the hall, and to my room on the left. I slammed my door closed and fell onto my bed, sobbing. For my Dad leaving us, for Mom wanting me to wear diapers, for Mona being such a witch and stealing Dad from me, and for myself, for my wetting issues. I fell asleep on the bed, after crying for almost an hour.

To Be Continued...

 

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