(Rating: 3/5, CW: automated nursery, mental distress, diaper use (messy), immature and brat behavior.)

Thump thump thump thump!

The sound echoed between empty walls.

Thump thump thump thump!

Behind the tinted glass panel, the overgrown baby was pounding with balled-up fists. Again, and again, and again, pound pound pound pound.

"Hey! Heeyyyyyy! Anyone heeeere?" he wailed.

But there was nobody behind the one-way mirror to answer him. The waiting room behind it was empty and dark. Not that he could tell anyway: the entire point of one-way mirrors that one side couldn’t see the other.

"Get me out of here!" he pleaded to deaf ears. He was getting upset. The room was too big, and too quiet, and he was too alone, and he wanted out now!

Earlier today, Daddy had told him the automatic nursery was a great place to hang out with friends, and that he would be back in a few hours. Liar!

‘Daddy just wants to have a drink with some old friends’, he said. ‘Daddy needs some time with his own friends, like you do with your playdates’, he said. ‘Daddy will be back before you even know it, champ’, he said.

Liar, liar! He wasn't coming back at all! He was never coming back! The baby had no watch to check the time, but it felt like he had been there alone for hours. For a full day, even. Or a week. Or maybe he had been here all of his life, who knows?!

As soon as he had passed the automated entrance portal, he had been stripped of his street clothes by big metallic arms. The same arms powdered his butt and taped him into a diaper that felt way too thick for playtime, and then forcibly clad him into a pink onesie.

Pink. PINK! Why did it have to be PINK?! He hated that color! He looked like a girl! He never wanted to wear pink before, and now he never wanted to wear it even harder!

And then, after being forced to go through this humiliation, he was dumped into this room. A cold room with half the light bulbs turned off, and nobody else inside. No music, only silence. It smelled like old people's farts.

Worse than being alone, this place was so lame. Everything looked so old and worn out! The TVs were big cathodic tubes that didn’t even turn on. Under them, stacked rows of VHS tapes without labels. The story books were an incomplete and scattered collection of Care Bears adventures. Care Bears! It's so ancient that it belongs in a museum! It’s like, kids stuff from when Daddy was a kid! Where were the good books? Paw Patrol, and PinkFong, and Bluey, heck, even Dora the Explorer would be nice right now?!

The toys felt like they were made for dumber kids from a dumber age where they didn't even have cell phone reception. Who still plays with a wooden train these days?

All of this frustrated the adult baby to no end. He tapped and pounded on the giant one-way mirror that took an entire wall - and made the room look twice as big as it really was - but there was no answer. No matter how hard he screamed, he couldn’t attract any attention. He fell on his knees, defeated.

And then it happened.

BLORT!

He didn't even feel his body preparing for a mess. It was a pinch, and a push, and a mush. It came out of him like toothpaste out of a tube. Like when you squeeze them really hard in the middle to get it all out. One second, his bottom was clean, and the next it wasn’t.

The shock left him silent. Then, slowly, rising from deep inside of him, the biggest tantrum came out as a shrieking wail.

"...aaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAH !!!"

He cried his eyes out, like a toddler who fell on the ground and scraped his knees. Tears flowed freely from his eyes.

He HATED being messy! It was gross and sticky and it smelled! And the smelly diaper would follow him everywhere he went until he got a change! He couldn’t even sit because it would be even grosser!

Daddy was always here to take care of him when he cried, and now he was GONE! Like a LIAR! WHERE IS DADDY???

He cried and cried and cried. There seemed to be no end to the flow of tears that cascaded from his eyes. The Niagara Falls of messy little boys. Yet nobody came to hold him and tell him that everything would be okay.

After 10 minutes, the tears dried out, but the whining continued.

After half an hour, the baby began to wiggle around, bothered by the smell.

After an hour, he finally let his butt touch the floor, grossed out by the sensation of the mess smushing against his precious little bottom. This drew out more tears, but not for very long.

After two hours, he was lounging on a pile of pillows. This was boring. And smelly! Boring and smelly! Eugh!

He asked a question to the skies, hoping it would be heard. "Mister computer? Can I have a changies now? Pleaaaase?" But the computer ignored his request. He didn’t know if it was because the computer was deaf, or if it was because there was no computer at all. Or maybe he was mad at him for not liking the pink onesie.

After two and a half hours... His tummy started rumbling.

"No! No no nononono..." he protested in vain. But before he could even assume a better position, another mess spat out of him, filling the back of his diaper to the brim. He was positively wallowing in his own muck. Immediately, he began to cry again, even louder than the first time. No! Not again!

"WAAAAAhahahaaaaaaa... DAAAADDEEEEEEEE !!!"

The little boy needed his Daddy.

But where was Daddy?

Daddy was having the time of his life at the bar with his old friends, drinking and laughing loudly. His mind was at ease, certain that the nursery would take care of his little boy like a perfect babysitter. They would both get to enjoy a great time, even if they weren’t together for once. He had never tried this nursery before, but the online reviews were overwhelmingly positive. Toys, friends to play with, and diaper changes on demand, it was simply ideal.

Oh, how wrong he was.

Maybe, if he hadn’t been so eager to get his very demanding little boy off his hands, he would have paid attention to the sign at the shopping mall automated nursery’s entrance. A bright yellow sign that said:

WARNING!

Your Indoor Mega Fun nursery service is currently down for maintenance!

We’re giving some well-deserved updates to our famous playground to make sure all little ones will have the time of their life whenever they visit us.

Re-opening is scheduled for this Winter season. During maintenance, only minimal service will be offered. Please get in contact with one of our employees if you have any questions or need to pick up your little one, as the auto check-out is unavailable.