Worse Things Have Happened
by TrampingPony
Things could have been better, things could have been worse. That was right, things could have been worse.
For all she knew, she could have had an accident involving a cart, two pegasi and spinach. There was nothing worse than anything involving spinach. Yep, and this at least didn't involve spinach, or any other food that was 'healthy' and 'helped you grow'.
On the other hoof, the current situation didn't involve any kind of food, not even the good kind. Like candy, or cakes, or tarts, or donuts, or ice cream. Some of those would've sweetened the deal, and that literally.
Babs Seed found herself standing in front of her own bed as if it was a monster trying to eat her. Mind you, she was sure that there was something lurking in the shadows underneath, waking when the lights went out, but the bed in and of itself was harmless. So, what captured her attention wasn't her beloved mattress but rather what rested upon it. It reminded her of how she had enough problems in life. Would this cost her friendship with the other Manehatten Crusaders?
Probably not, Liberty Belle would use it as 'leverage' to prove herself as leader and Pomegranate was too nice a pony to care. Considering how they'd been cutie mark crusading for only a month now, Babs felt safe in her estimation of the two. So, that wasn't the mental thing that was causing her dilemma.
Was it even a mental dilemma, or just the pancakes? Eating ten of those for dinner had probably been a bad choice, but her parents weren't home now. Sometimes sacrifices just had to be made for the greater good. Babs wanted to pat herself on the shoulder for that bit of wisdom, but ultimately found that it probably wasn't the pancakes. As a matter of fact, she could probably go for ten more.
But she was pretty sure the kitchen could not.
And there was the issue whether there was any syrup left. . .
She grumbled, but while her mind managed to wander for a bit, her eyes never left that darn thing. If there was a feeling similar to what she was feeling now it would've been. . . Failing a test at school when the test was made for kindergarteners. Yeah, that felt right. For that bit of wisdom, Babs wanted to pat herself on the shoulder, but ultimately found slamming her head against her mattress a better solution.
Why me?, she asked in her head, but only silence replied.
"Why me?", she asked aloud, this time the silence remained, but probably shuffled around quite awkwardly as it tried to find a proper answer.
The answer was quite simple, as the doctor had put it, nocturnal endurance, or something like that. Apparently she was stressed out at school and let it out by wetting her bed.
Quite frankly, Babs Seed didn't understand what part of her body thought that would solve anything. It felt like it was just dropping more things to worry about her tiny, frail body. Not that her body was all that tiny or frail, what with her being one of the more thick-boned ponies in her family and all, but that didn't matter. She was sensitive, so she couldn't take all that stress.
For a moment she wondered what the bullies would do if they found out she wet the bed.
Before the horrible thought managed to even say: "Hi!" she already threw it out of the window and went back to staring at the package.
Besides, it wasn't like anypony would actually find out. Her parents knew, of course. Her mother had told her that she'd outgrow it eventually and her father had said something along the lines that she might skip nightly visits to the toilet now, so it wouldn't be all that bad.
It didn't involve, spinach, too.
"OF COURSE IT'S THAT BAD!", she screamed out, throwing herself on the bed, kicking the package to the opposite end of it.
Babs stared at her ceiling, which looked like somepony had spilled paint across it. Why ever they had let aunt Fiddlesticks handle the painting of their home still escaped Babs Seed. For all that talk about being an artist, the moment that mare so much as touched something with color. . . Well, exploding the paint across the room was unique and all, but not the sort of thing Babs believed any interior designer would approve of.
Her parents had made lots of weird choices in their life. There were three different branches of the Apple family in Manehatten, two of them Oranges (and a fourth being the Banana ponies, but nopony ever talked about them). Out of all three, the Oranges were extraordinarily high class, Pomegranate's family managed to keep up well with the 'dapper style' Manehatten prided itself for and Babs' family was. . . Out there.
Right now her parents were leviathan hunting with sea ponies and that was probably all the information necessary on the matter. A leviathan was apparently more important than their daughter struggling with the decision whether or not spinach was as horrible as this situation.
She wasn't as sure anymore.
Babs Seed frowned and a second later made her choice, lifting herself up.
There was nothing worse than spinach.
Nothing.
The earth pony stared at the pink and blue package with an age proper filly on it which seemed a bit too enthusiastic about the garments she was wearing. No, not enthusiastic, she actually looked kinda condescending, standing on two hooves, having her two forehooves on her hips and smiling at Babs in a way that just told her: "I got paid for putting this on and I don't actually need it, so excuse me while I get my mom to drive me to the ice cream parlor after this."
Babs hoped that the filly choked on spinach flavored candy.
She leaned forward a bit more, ever closer at the plastic and the smiling filly, which only managed to get more condescending as Babs approached. For a second she had to wonder whether it was one of those 3D picture thingies which involved soul stealing magic.
You could fault her for thinking so much about hurting that poor filly, but on the other hoof: That smile was neither nice, nor especially beautiful.
Babs leaned in way too close however and fell on her stomach, staring right at the package and losing a bit of her frown. This wasn't exactly a shining moment but by accepting it, she would surely keep some dignity.
Her eyes went to the side of the package, where her favorite plush platypus stared at her in quite the pitying way.
"Right, not much dignity left anyway," she told the platypus, rolling her eyes.
When you had seen your father brag about some giant he wrestled in some sort of championship involving demigods, dragons and the like, you pretty much lost all social points. Nopony ever believed her father did anything like that. Her mom most certainly hadn't believed it before they had gone off for the first time and Babs wasn't going to believe it either until he took her to bring down that demon king that bothered the southern regions of Equestria.
Well, it wasn't actually just her standing in society (at least she wasn't on the same level as her cousin Banana Milkshake, who had to deal with everypony treating her like she didn't exist), that wasn't going to be affected anyhow if she was sneaky about it. No, this was about her entertaining the thought that she finally got a portable cushion for her backside.
Thing was, when playing with any sort of toys, she'd often found herself sitting on the floor, and while the house had a variety of floors, there weren't any that she counted as particularly comfortable. Yes, some sort of padding would greatly benefit her while playing and might actually work for her.
Nevermore would she need to rise up when she and her fellow crusaders discussed their stratgagems, or however these things were called. And, now that she thought about it, the thing with her nightly toilet habits was true, too. No more fearing the monster beneath her bed, for she could simply stay in bed for the entire night, which was also something grown-ups did.
The more she contemplated, the less negative points she could find. Sure, there was the indignity of wearing a diaper, but the thought of it being a garment for babies had been discarded the moment she had been openly laughed at for thinking it that way. Babs could easily discard of things ponies laughed at her for, mostly.
She looked at the package. "Okay," she told herself, looking at the rows of stuffed animals behind it. The filly had lots of plushies and now they all looked at her encouragingly. "I'm gonna do it."
The filly put her hooves to the package and ripped it open. Taking the sweet scent of it in. It wasn't anything like candy, but still, they had that going for them, she presumed.
Babs took one of them out and simply stared for a moment at the highly stylized sea ponies dancing across it.
She cracked a smile. That was funny, in a dark, condescending way, but funny nonetheless. At least she could toss that packaging with the filly in the garbage can, so that was good.
Next up, she tried to figure out whether she shouldn't just skip this whole thing, after all and just go to bed, wake up in the middle of the night, with another cover ruined, her parents scolding her when she told them and no candy for the rest of the week.
A second later the diaper was laid out on the bed and Babs was fervently studying the instructions to put it on. Hadn't her parents told her to put some powder on, too? Probably not, it wasn't like anything bad could happen if she didn't. Like, seriously, it was just a diaper, nothing harmful.
However, before she took to actually putting it on, she finally remembered that her room actually had a window. One that showed her the grey walls of some apartment building, with the small wooden shack that the CMCs called their headquarters resting by its side. No matter how stoney the wall itself was or how empty she presumed the shack to be, in the end she wanted to make sure that nopony would find out that the diapers were for her.
It occurred to her for a second that her logic might have been faulty on that one.
She shrugged it off and pulled the drapes shut.
Babs sat down on the diaper, which felt just as she had expected, comfortable, even if a bit thick. She hadn't gotten why they needed to be like this, there had been options for pull-on styles, but her father, being her father, had yelled at both the doctor and the clerk selling them the stuff that he would never stoop so low as to do things halfway.
She brushed the thickness off with the thought that it also meant that there were more pictures on the diaper, which meant she could brag about it to Liberty. That filly thought everything with pictures on it was expensive.
With a deep breath she pulled the front up and after that spent a whole two minutes trying to figure out how to put this thing on properly. At the halfway turn she simply went out of her room and looked around the house, as if her mother would magically appear to help her. She didn't, of course. Her mother only helped her when it led to awkward moments with schoolmates later on or when parents could dote on her being so 'cute' and 'adowable', which wasn't even a real word.
After that she went to the kitchen, avoiding the spots where syrup was spread across the floor as good as she could and went for a glass of milk. Thereafter she returned to her diaper and spend another two minutes awkwardly shuffling the thing around like she would have needed a thirty page manual to understand the concepts behind.
Or just some graphs. Graphs always helped with everything.
Finally she stood up on her bed, letting out a victorious: "HA HA!", like she had just won the Thunderbolt Derby of Canterlot.
Babs looked at herself, taking a moment to take it all in. These things definitely made her feel like any kind of self-worth was relative by this point, and the doubts were shifting again. However, an Apple was a pony able to adapt, aunt Applejack had once told her during a meetup, some years ago, and she took the platypus plushie, hugging it.
"Well, I got you guys to help me, right," she said with a smile and moved the animal's head to a nod.
For all she knew, she might still end up in an accident involving a cart, two pegasi and spinach. What mattered was that now, she could at least pretend that she would conquer her bedwetting, because that's what adults did. They pretended to conquer their fears until they genuinely believed to have done so.
Truly, things could have been better, but things could have also been a lot, lot worse.
