A New Year and a Clean Slate, Part 2

Part 2: disaster chases opportunity away

Note: You will understand this entry better if you read Part 1. Click here if you want to find out what led up to this disaster.

My problems began after I sat in the high chair. The pins holding my costume together kept popping open. I might as well have been wearing a loin cloth. My training pants were just too small. My belly hides everything I’ve got down there, but it’s embarrassing. I wanted to ask for another diaper, but they couldn’t have found one in time. Holding up my costume, I started looking for a substitute. I needed a way out.

Thankfully, I found a fancy table cloth draped over an old wooden bureau. It was a lot bigger than that little strip of cloth they wanted me to use. Now all I needed was something strong enough to pin it together. I found two medals on an old uniform and used them for my pins. It worked!

I sat down on the high chair to put on my new diaper. I don’t remember how it happened, but I accidentally grabbed the cloth from the refreshment table and pinned it to the cloth I had wrapped around my waste. The high chair was right next to the refreshment table. It was decked out with ice sculptures, fondues, finger sandwiches, champagne, punch, chocolate-covered strawberries, shrimp, cake, pie and cookies. Everything you’d ever wanted to put in your gullet was there. My mouth began to water.

Temptation overcame me, and that’s when disaster struck. Just as I got up to swipe a sandwich, the table cloth ripped the medal from the left side of my diaper. At the same time, my nappy yanked all of the refreshments off of the table. The food and drinks went flying; a can of sterno ignited my behind. I tried to put out the flame, but I heard startled voices coming down the hall.

I slipped out the back door, and hurried into the woods. It wasn’t easy holding up one end of the cloth with my right hand and swatting my behind with my left.

I just tuned into an AM station on the radio. The reporter said a vandal had ruined the New Year’s gala and fund raiser at the Art Museum by dumping the refreshments over and setting a small fire. Someone took a picture of him running into the woods with flames licking his hind quarters. There was a reward out.

That’s not the worst of it. I just found out the diaper I’m wearing was made by Betsy Ross. The medals belonged to George Washington. They found one of them in the museum. I lost the other one in the woods. They were on loan from the Smithsonian!

I extinguished the flames by sitting down in the snow and held the diaper up with my hands all the way back. I didn’t soil it, but it sure looks that way with all the burn marks and champagne stains around the edges and the back side. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to do it. Well how was I supposed to know they were priceless American treasures?

A New Year and a Clean Slate, Part 1

Part 1: opportunity comes knocking

It’s 3:00 AM, and I’m finally in my tent. I had to make my way back on foot through the ice and snow with nothing but a diaper on my bottom. It all started when dad told me I needed to get a job or I’d have to find another place to live. I tried to reason with him. I’m 76 years old! He was unmoved. To make sure I followed through, he drove me downtown, dropped me off yesterday at noon and told me not to come back without a job. I went looking all around town but everyone was closed. It was New Year’s Eve. Dad didn’t care. I still had to find a job.

By 4:30 PM, I was discouraged. It looked like I’d have to find a place at the homeless shelter. I was on my way down there, when I passed the Simpleton Museum of Art, Culture and History. I noticed a sign that said “Baby Actor Wanted”! Dad says I’m a big baby, so I thought why not? I went in and auditioned for the part. It wasn’t too hard. I introduced myself with goo-goo noises and whining, but they told me that was unnecessary. I threw a temper tantrum, and they told me to get off the floor, I was hired. I heard them whispering to one another.

“This one may be our last hope,” said one of the managers, “We’re desperate. Someone has to do it. Hire him before he gets away.” 

They gave me a cloth, a banner and a top hat, and told me it was my costume. The cloth was supposed to be a diaper. I asked for diaper pins.

“Oh yes,” they said, “We couldn’t very well do without that, could we? And thank you, Mr. Plate, for taking this job on such short notice.” 

“Glad to help,” I said.

“The party runs from 9:00 PM until just after midnight,” said the manager, “Please show up at 11:30 PM in costume, have a seat over there, in that high chair, next to the punch and cookies. Suck your thumb while the guests filter in from the Conference Room. After Father Time leaves, get up and flounce around like a toddler. Make goo-goo noises like you did when you auditioned for us. Just be careful not to bump into anything. Everything in here is old, fragile and precious.” 

After they left, I sneaked into one of the exhibit rooms in back and found an old-time bed. A manikin was in my way, so I moved it over, snuggled up with it and fell asleep.

At 11:00 PM, I woke up in a state of panic. In my haste, I forgot to make the bed, but the manikin kept smiling at me while I donned my costume. The diaper was so tight it cut off the blood flow below my waste. Painfully, I made my way to the high chair in the Great Room, next to the punch and cookies.

This concludes Part 1 of “A New Year and a Clean Slate.” Click here if you want to find out what happened next.