Addiction

Chapter 10
Thrift Shop

Today: Still Morning. Running Late for Work.

10. I’m gonna pop some tags

Only got twenty dollars in my pocket

I-I-I’m huntin’. Lookin’ for a come up

This is fucking awesome!

- Macklemore and Ryan Lewis; “Thrift Shop”.

“Hello, welcome to Wal…oh!” The greeter said as Damien power walked in. Even though his pants were black and pretty much designed to hide unsightly stains, anyone with eyes could tell that he had just peed his pants.

“Sir are you okay?” the greeter asked as Damien power walked past.

“Oh yeah, nothing big. Minor wardrobe malfunction.” Play it cool Damien. Play it cool. There was no time to waste, Damien was definitely going to be late for work, but if he acted now, he could still salvage the situation. It was still relatively early in the morning, and the ratio of employees to shoppers was probably about one to one: Mostly working stiffs starting the morning shift, mixed in with old folks and stay at home moms who just dropped their kids off for school.

As a result, while it was far from empty, there was more than enough space for Damien to maneuver around on the floor and avoid people and not notice the occasional sideways glance and double takes from people who passed him by.

With purpose, he grabbed a cart and made a bee-line for exactly where he needed to go.

“Let’s see, I want this,” he grabbed a Duplo Play set, “and this,” he dumped an animal zoo playset into the cart as he snaked around to the next shelf. “Oh, and you can never have enough of these”, a baby Cookie Monster doll and a Potty Time Elmo doll found their way into the cart. He smiled a big open smile and more saliva trickled down his chin.

He felt a slight trickle of jealousy at the two baby dolls. More so for baby Cookie Monster than Potty Time Elmo. Baby Cookie Monster didn’t have to worry about the potty.

A random thought popped into Damien’s head as he course corrected for the DVD section. Hmmm, why didn’t the baby Sesame Street characters’ diapers have decorations on them? He knew some diapers had Sesame street characters on them, why wouldn’t the characters themselves have decorated diapers? Then again, should they wear pictures of themselves on their own diapers? That was deep. That was deep.

Just as he was browsing through the selection of “Go Diego Go” DVD’s Damien shifted uncomfortably. His crotch was beginning to feel cold and clammy. That’s when Damien remembered to look down at his wet pants and he came back to his senses.

What the hell was he doing?! He had come to get new clothes, not get more toys. Worse yet, he had pretty much already maxed out his credit card. There was no way he could afford all of this awesome stuff right now!

Damien abandoned the shopping cart filled with toddler toys and strode into the racks of the clothing section. He grabbed a pair of sweatpants off a rack and threw them over his shoulder. He likely wasn’t going to be able to afford a nice pair of black slacks. But then again, managing money hadn’t been his strong suit lately. Still, he didn’t want to chance it. He wandered into the underwear section and half-heartedly picked up a package of men’s briefs. These would do. But what happened if he had another accident? He supposed he could layer them up for protection like the night befo-

“Attention boys and girls,” a hauntingly familiar, feminine voice, called out over the speaker. “Wal-Mart is having a sale in the pharmacy section. All adult incontinence products are fifty percent off today. “

Sweatpants and underwear in hand, Damien rushed to the pharmacy section, hoping that he wouldn’t have to fight past any crowds on the sale. Someone must have been looking out for him, because there were absolutely no one else in the adult incontinence aisle of the pharmacy section. Damien reached out and grabbed a gray package.

It read “Depends for Men Guards. Maximum Absorbency.” Maximum absorbency, huh? Damien might need that. The picture on the front kind of looked like a maxi pad. Damien supposed he was meant to slip that into the front of his pants, and if something squirted out, the padding would catch it. Seemed simple enough. But what if it wasn’t enough? It was a wall alright, but it was only half way built.

Then he saw another package. A green package that read “Depends Adjustable Underwear With Velcro Closures.” Now that was what Damien had in mind. It still had the same “maximum absorbency” guarantee on the bottom of the package, it could be adjusted to give him a better fit than sticking a pad down the front of his crotch, and it cost the same amount as the “Men Guards”. Best yet, he wouldn’t have to buy new underwear on top of everything. That was just simple economics, duh!

He dropped the underwear to the floor, and took the adult pull-ups into his arms. Thoughts of victory buzzed in his brain as he ran to the nearest cash register. He was so happy that he didn’t notice the strange looks he was getting in the check-out line, and some of the people were so nice, they let him skip them to the front.

The cashier slid the sweat pants and the Depends across the scanner and then said “That’ll be 20.59.”

“What about the sale?” Damien asked.

“What sale?” The cashier seemed genuinely confused. Damien spotted a clock nearby and looked at the time. This wasn’t worth it.

“Never mind,” Damien huffed in exasperation. People at Wal-Mart were so dumb there was almost no point in talking to them at all. He took out his credit card and slid it. There was an uncomfortable pause, as Damien waited for the charge to go through. Please don’t decline, please don’t decline, please don’t decline. After the longest three seconds of his life that morning, the screen flashed “Approved”, and Damien grabbed his supplies without bothering to wait for a receipt.

He dashed into the nearest public restroom and into the handicapped stall. Damien kicked off his shoes and tore off the bottom half of his clothes. Next he tore open the package of adult diapers and slid them up his legs and onto his hips.

“Not bad,” Damien’s self-appraisal echoed off the bathroom walls. He looked down and saw the Velcro tapes. They were on pretty firmly already. The adult garment went on like a Pull-Up, and like a Pull-Up, the sides could be torn off and the Velcro tapes could be utilized to reattach the sides. Damien figured this was in case the elastic waistband didn’t give a snug enough fit for the wearer, or in case a nurse, or a daycare worker, or a babysitter, or a mommy needed to check to see if he was wet without taking off all the whole diaper. Damien didn’t know why, but that last thought left a bitter taste in his brain.

Seeing no need to adjust the tabs on his little bit of protection, Damien ripped the tag off the black sweatpants and slid them up his legs. He examined himself in the handicapped stall’s mirror. There was a slight bulge that the sweatpants didn’t hide very well, but as long as no one was actively staring at him, he didn’t think anyone would notice.

The front end of his shirt was a little wet, Damien noticed, but that couldn’t be helped. Damien was sure that there had been the word “barely” implied with the “Approved” message after he swiped his credit card. If the dumb bitch at the counter had paid attention and knew about the sale, maybe he could have afforded at least a plain white t-shirt. He just tucked the front back into his sweat pants and hoped no one would notice.

Damien slipped his shoes back on and dug his car keys and wallet out of his discarded pants’ pockets. He left the bathroom empty-handed; his wet pants and the rest of the package of Depends were on the bathroom floor. Someone else would pick them up, so it didn’t matter. And when other people found out about the sale they’d probably do the same thing he just did, so it’s not like he was going to be the only one doing it.

He would only need one diaper today, anyways. Of that much he was sure. It was a just in case precaution, not a certainty. He would beat this pants wetting thing, he knew. He was just being smart by wearing protection in case he didn’t know as much as he thought he did.

When he got back to his car and turned the ignition, he saw his phone blinking. Someone had left him a voicemail. He picked it up out of the pile of juice boxes, and checked his messages.

“Hey Damien, it’th Delilah,” the voicemail began. She sounded tired, like she hadn’t slept in a couple of days. “I haven’t heard from you in a while, and I wath thinking maybe we could get back together again…pleathe?” There was a long pause, and something funny about the way Delilah spoke. Damien could hear Delilah start sobbing.

“Damien, whatever I did, I’m thorry, okay.” Delilah spoke through the sobs. “I don’t care if you don’t want to go out with me, anymore, but I need thomeone to talk to. You’re, like, the only one who might underthtand what’th happening to me. I don’t even underthtand what’th happening to me!”

“I’ve been having thethe weird dreamth, Damien,” Delilah went on. “Weird, humiliating dreamth.” More sobs. “I’ve been wetting the bed, like, a lot, and now I have to wear diaperth during the day time. I can’t thtop pithing mythelf. I can’t even find the motivation to clean up after mythelf motht dayth. My home ith falling apart.” Even more sobs. “I’m freaking out, too, because I’m mithing teeth. Like they’re not falling out, I mean. It’th jutht, like, I wake up, and their…gone! Between the dreamth and diaperth and now the fucking teeth, I’m afraid to go to thleep.”

“Holy crap,” Damien exclaimed, nearly breathless. What had this girl been going through since they broke up?

“And,” she took a deep breath. “I’m out of Re-Leathe. Tho pleathe, call me back.” Damien’s heart instantly hardened. That bitch. That lying bitch. She wasn’t in trouble at all. She was just another junkie who was using him for his access to the little red miracle pill. She really did only like him for his Re-Lease.

“Sucks to be you,” he said to the voice mail. “I’m doing great.”