(Content warning: diaper use (wet), leaking, mental distress, liminal spaces.)
There’s an odd little store in the suburbs of my city. I used to pass by it every day on my way home. An oblong building made of concrete and drywall, painted a faded pale blue. One of the outside walls is covered from top to bottom with concert posters, new ones covering the outdated ones almost every week. It’s located at ground level, with its back to a railway, and hiding under a bridge where another railway goes by.
It looks a bit like a two-cars-wide garage, except it’s located nowhere near any house or apartment complex that would call for it. There are no other stores on that street. It stands there, alone, like someone built it one day in hope of attracting other constructions, but it never did.
And the most peculiar thing is that there’s no employees in that weird store. It’s not abandoned, not at all, but you will never see a single person working there. No cashier, no cleaner, no security, no owner. Like some kind of self-service gas station, everything is there for you to use but there’s no one to help you.
Well, that’s not entirely true. There’s someone who takes care of the store, but he only comes out at night. Around 3:30 AM, when drunkards are done toddling their way back home and stray dogs have called it a night, a man will come in his little car. He will pick up a crate or two from the car’s trunk, get inside, and lower down a solid metal shutter over the entrance - I told you it was kind of like a garage! He’ll stay inside for about half an hour, lift the shutters back up, and leave in his tiny little car. As far as I can tell, he does that every day. I guess he only stays long enough to restock the machines and clean a bit, nothing more. I assume it’s the owner, but I’ve never talked to him, so I can’t be sure.
Oh yeah, sorry, I haven’t told you what’s inside yet. The store is kind of split in two. The left half is filled with vending machines, two big ones and two small ones. Well, one of the small ones is not really a vending machine, just something that will convert your bank notes into a handful of tokens to use with the bigger ones. ‘Supplies’ and ‘snacks’, that’s what the signs say.
Actually, there’s something charming about it: there are signs everywhere, plastered over every available surface. And they’re not “corporate” messages, like, printed from a computer and stapled in place. No no: every sign is hand-written. It tells you everything you need to know. How to operate the machines, what to do if there’s an issue, detailed information in case there has been any recent change to the store, etc. The person who wrote these really wanted to make sure you wouldn’t be lost at any step of the process. It’s seriously detailed!
And it’s written in this cute way, how can I describe it…? Like a big sister who would leave you a note in your lunchbag because she had to tell you something but she wouldn’t be home when you came back from school? Ah, maybe that’s a bit too personal of an example. But you catch my drift. Very wholesome. Whoever wrote these also liked to doodle some kind of cute mascot on a few signs. I don’t know if it’s from a show or something? It looks like a little panda but with long rabbit ears? I have no clue what it is exactly.
Ah, sorry, I’m rambling again! So, half the store is filled with the machines, and the other half is partitioned behind planes of drywall, making a little room of sorts. I’d say the room is big enough for two persons, for obvious reasons.There’s a door in the drywall to get in, with a little lock to close it behind you. And let me tell you, I don’t know how that’s possible, but I’ve never seen that lock broken or malfunctioning. Ever. Half the locks in the bathrooms at my office don’t work properly, but this one? Always in top-notch condition.
Well anyway, outside the room there’s also a little sink with soap and paper towels, and a trash bin. Even on the trash bin, there are signs that say stuff like “Thank you for cleaning behind you” and “Littering is more work for us, please be conscious of your surroundings”. Cute, I told you, very cute.
And so inside the little room, there’s…
… You know, I’m not really doing it justice, describing it like that. It’s a place you really have to see in action to understand. Let me tell you the tale of what I saw, one lazy afternoon, as I was eating lunch on a bench nearby. I didn’t really “get” that place until I saw that little scene happen. After that, it just clicked. It all made sense from that point.
***
A man in his thirties walked briskly, holding the hand of a young woman who could either be his girlfriend or his little sister. He was wearing a conservative button-up shirt and slacks, a very “responsible adult” look. She, on the other hand, wore a plain white t-shirt, a pleated skirt and high socks, and her allure skewed much younger than she actually was. By the way she walked, it was clear that something was making her uncomfortable. She certainly looked distressed, and the man was having a bad time as well.
When he noticed the oblong building, his face lit up. “Look!” he said to her. “I knew I had seen something here before. We’re going to make it okay, don’t worry!”
They entered the little store together. The man looked around the walls, a little dazzled by the sheer amount of information to absorb. His eyes shifted from signs to notes until he found one that proclaimed “Read this first!” in bright red letters. As he began to read, the woman let go of his hand and wandered on her own, curiously looking at the vending machines. In the biggest one, dubbed ‘Supplies’, she saw something that made her gasp.
“Daddy, look! They have a giraffe!”
“Just a moment, sweet pea,” he told her as he got his wallet out. He fed a small bank note to the machine in front of him, and after a couple of seconds, five tokens fell into the change tray. They were slightly bigger than a coin and made of light blue plastic; no way you could ever mistake them for actual currency.
He grabbed them, a little surprised he’d gotten so many at once, and joined the excited girl in front of the machine. “Right! Looks like they have some choice here. Which one do you want, sweetie?”
“The giraffe, the giraffe!” she replied happily, pointing at an item on the lower rows of the machine. The distress she was showing a minute ago seems to have all but evaporated.
He beamed a patient smile as he corrected her: “No, sweet pea, I meant for your change. What kind of diaper would you prefer? They’re all up here, see?”
“Oh…” She sounded a lot less excited to make that choice.
Her eyes lifted up to look at the window. The top two rows of the ‘Supplies’ machine were filled with various kinds of adult diapers. There were four different models, each available in three sizes - small, medium and large. A helpful little sign on the machine informed them that they were all based on the same brand, and while the looks may vary, they were all equal in terms of quality. Fortunately, all four were in stock at the moment, spoiling them for choice.
On the top row, the designs were somewhat classic: one was white with a blue trim and light blue tapes, the other dark blue with no pattern whatsoever. On the row right below it, the designs were a bit more detailed: white with an elaborate pink lace pattern on the sides and delicate pink butterflies peppered all over, or a very childish ‘jungle’ pattern, complete with lions, monkeys and snakes (oh my!), in various shades of teal and orange.
The woman pouted. None of what she was seeing did anything for her, even as her Daddy tried to coax an answer out of her.
“Which one do you like best? The butterfly one? It looks very cute.”
“Hmmmnnoooo…”
“Alright, the safari one then? It has a lion on it, see?”
“Eeeeh…”
“No? You’re sure? I guess the white one then? You’ve never worn a dark diaper before.”
“I don’t like any of them!” she whined under her breath.
He let out a little sigh. “Sweet pea, that’s all we have right now. There’s no other store around. We have to choose one. You’re sure there’s not one you like best?”
She mumbled something he couldn’t quite hear, but it didn’t sound like a positive answer.
“Alright, then, I’m choosing for you. I’ll say… the lion one. Last call for the lion one, no takesies backsies?”
“Hmm…” she mewled, which could have been a yes or a no.
“Lion it is. I think a size M should fit you!”
The diaper he had chosen called for the price of a single token. He inserted it in the coin slot and looked up the window once more to confirm the number, before pressing the “B” and “5” keys. The vending hummed back to life, and from the bottom of the window, a black metallic bar rose.
Right at this moment, the girl suddenly shouted: “Wait no, Daddy, I want the pink one!”
“Wha- seriously?” he said as he turned towards her, looking very annoyed. “It’s too late now! I can’t change it once the machine has started!”
The machine continued its operation uninterrupted: the black bar with a tray raised up to the desired row, then a little treadmill activated under the B5 slot. Slowly, a folded-up diaper rolled down on the bar. Once it was fully laid up on the recovery tray, it lowered again to the very bottom of the machine and the letterbox-shaped door unlocked itself with a ‘clack’.
“I’m sorry, sweetie, but we’re going to have to use this one,” he declared as he crouched to grab his purchase. “I don’t think you will need two layers, either. Sorry, pumpkin.”
The woman fell silent again. She looked upset by the situation, but rather than express her anger vocally, she just looked down at her shoes with a scowling face.
Her Daddy looked at the package in his hand. It was a single adult diaper covered with pink butterflies, under a clear plastic wrap, but there was something stuck to the wrapper. Held in place with a piece of tape, a disc of golden plastic was included with his purchase. It looked a bit like a coin, if all of its features were smoothened off. And he had no idea what this was supposed to be.
“Huh.”
He pocketed the plastic coin without thinking too much about it, then directed his attention towards the vending machine once again. There was something else he needed to purchase. He inserted another blue token, selected “C6”, and the distributor woke up a second time.
“I’m glad it’s one of those machines where the items roll down on a thread,” he mused out loud. “Not one with the turning springs that always get stuck in place. There’s nobody to help us here, so that would be embarrassing if it happened, don’t you think?”
The upset girl kept looking fiercely at her shoes in silence. For a few awkward seconds, the only noise that could be heard came from the machine.
The new item finally dropped, and the man leaned forward to grab it from the open flap. A small pack of wet wipes and the tiniest tub of rash cream he had ever seen in his life. Just enough for a single change, and not much more, but it would do. The two items weren’t from the same brand, but someone had taken the time to tape them together so they would only take a single slot in the machine. Along with… another golden “coin”, sandwiched between the two. There was a gimmick at work there, for sure.
With his changing supplies now in hand, he turned towards his silent friend. “I think we’re ready. You’re coming with me? We’re getting you into a fresh diaper, alright?”
He gently grabbed her hand and began to move towards the door on the right side of the store. But she stuck in place and refused to move.
“What’s going on, sweet pea?” he asked, his tone betraying a certain worry. “The changing table is right here, behind the door. You need to come with me. I can’t really do this on my own, right?”
She didn’t say a word, but her hand was shaking lightly. Alerted, her Daddy looked down… and noticed a trickle of liquid running down her thighs, getting wickered into her high socks as it reached the fabric.
Daddy’s eyes widened and his face went pale. His mouth ran a torrent of sweet words on its own. “Oh no no no no no sweetheart! I’m so sorry! I didn’t know it was so bad! Why didn’t you say anything?”
She didn’t reply, but her face told a whole story without a word. Tears began to pool up at the corner of her eyes.
The man wrapped his arm around her shoulders and gently guided her towards the closed room, pushing her slightly to walk fast, as if it would prevent any further complications. But the wetness running down her legs was holding her back and she could only manage small, uncertain steps.
“It’s okay, baby girl,” he whispered to her as they walked together. “Daddy is here. Daddy will make it all better. It’s okay, it’s okay…”
With one hand, he pushed the door open, and with the other, he guided the woman - his baby girl - inside the room, still comforting her with sweet words. Swiftly, he closed the door behind them. The lock turned from green to red with a snap and a loud noise. And then, silence.
The thin walls did a surprisingly good job at isolating the changing room from the outside world. If you paid attention, you could hear movement inside and fragments of a conversation, but nothing you could actually understand. As long as the lock on the door held strong, the couple was allowed privacy.
After a couple of minutes, however, a muffled sound began to rise. Long, sustained, and loud, even behind the walls. A voice tried to say something, but the sound kept getting louder.
The lock rotated back from red to green, and the door flung open. Instantly, the sound erupted into the open air: the girl was crying. Or rather, she emitted that odd mix of screaming, crying and overt sobs that only happened during a complete meltdown. The kind of wails that kids produce when they fall down on concrete and hurt their knees through their pants. The fact that she was an adult made it so much louder and inescapable.
As soon as the door had opened completely, the man rushed out of the room, leaving the door ajar. He had rolled his sleeves up to the elbow and his hands were covered with transparent plastic gloves. His expression was the mix of panic and focus of someone who has to deal with a crisis right now.
In three steps, he was back at the ‘Supplies’ vending machine. He fiddled in his pockets, trying to get his hand on a blue token. With a quick glance to the machine’s window, he located what he was looking for.
“Two tokens? Seriously? Eugh…” he complained out loud. Two tokens went into the coin slot. “G8” was pressed on the keypad. For a third time today, the vending machine sprung back to life.
The loud wailing kept going. The poor girl sounded like she was having the worst experience of her entire life. The man shouted towards the room: “It’s okay sweet pea! Daddy is coming back! Please calm down…”
He then watched the bar slowly rise up to the item he ordered, as he muttered an annoyed “Come on come on come on come on…” beneath his breath. It didn’t feel this excruciatingly slow a couple of minutes ago. But then again, Daddy didn’t have a screaming ‘baby girl’ on his hands at the time.
Finally, the door flap cracked open, and he retrieved the item in a hurry. Two items, in fact, shrink wrapped roughly in a sheet of plastic. He ripped the wrapper apart in a hurry, revealing the two items within…
A cheap orange pacifier, and, more importantly, a tiny, round giraffe plush toy, small enough to fit into the palm of his hand. The man didn’t notice that this pair of items also came with a third golden coin hidden within the package.
Just as quickly as he had left it, he was back into the changing room.
“I got it, sweet pea! Calm down, I’m here, I’m back. Look! Look at what I got you!”
The wailing seemed to diminish in volume, turning into an indecisive whining. There was some movement inside the room, and then the crying died out completely.
“There there. Do you like it? Isn’t it better like that? Hold on.” A pause. “There. Open wiiiiiiide…”
There was a little squeal of delight. After a few seconds of peace, the door closed again, slowly this time, and the lock turned from green to red.
It took a little while before they got out of the room again. Sucking on the pacifier her Daddy got from the vending machine and holding her new giraffe friend tight against her chest, the girl was a lot calmer, even if she looked a bit exhausted. She had removed her high socks, or rather, her Daddy had removed them so she wouldn’t get a wet feeling on her legs.
The man walked towards the outside trash bin and got rid of the various plastic wrappers he still carried with him, along with the empty pack of wipes and the tub of cream. The leaking diaper had already been disposed of in the special bin inside the room. You wouldn’t want that to find its way in an open trash can, anyway…
Daddy joined with his baby girl, who was patiently waiting for him, and wrapped his arms around her. He gave her a soft kiss on the forehead. “You’ve been a good girl, the best girl. I’m sorry I let things go this bad, I should have changed you earlier. Are you okay?”
She nodded in silence. The man knew better. When his little girl goes non-verbal, it means something is not fine. After all, she just came out from a pretty intense tantrum, and it would take time for her to go back to her carefree self. But he had just the thing to change her mind from this whole debacle.
“Hey, sweet pea? I still have one token left. Do you want something to drink? Or a little snack? My treat, for being such a good girl.”
The baby girl’s eyes widened in curiosity. Quietly, her Daddy led her to the second vending machine, the one they had both ignored so far. A nicely drawn sign displayed the word ‘Snacks’, held in place by drawings of two little pandas with bunny ears.
The machine was slightly smaller than the other one, and definitely an older model, but was filled to the brim with goods. Blinking lights were fighting to attract their attention to bottled water, soft drinks, sweets, chocolate covered nuts, corn chips, chewing gum, and many more things to eat and drink. If you had a craving for something, it was probably stocked in there.
Rubbing the girl’s arm in a display of affection, the man asked her: “So, what do you want?”
She darted her eyes at him with an unsure look. He smiled warmly and replied: “I’m not choosing for you this time. It’s all yours. You can have a drink, or a snack to munch, anything you like. Even what you can’t get at home.”
Her eyes were drawn again to the machine, and she looked with focused intensity at everything it had to offer. After a moment, she pointed at one picture.
“The gummy worms?” he confirmed out loud. “An excellent choice, your majesty.”
Compared to the other, this vending machine was cruder. He pushed his last token through the coin slot and pressed the glowing button underneath the picture of a packet of sweets. With a soft crash, a plastic bag fell immediately down the chute. He grabbed it and, knowing she would have asked him to do it, he opened the pack for her.
The girl carefully picked a green gummy worm from the offered pack, and plopped out her pacifier just long enough to chew on the candy, before placing it back in. As she did, her Daddy picked a single worm and devoured it in one gulp. She shot him an indignant look, but he shrugged and said: “What? That’s the Dad Tax. You must always pay the Dad Tax.”
Still, as he gave her the pack of sweets to hold, he knew something was still off. No amount of sugar would lighten her mood. But he was all out of cash, and she already had received a toy today - the squishy giraffe plush she was so intensely squeezing in her hand.
Her eyes wandered around the room as his girl slowly picked up a second gummy worm and began to chew on it, checking the different signs he hadn’t read yet. One of them caught his attention. It was located over the last vending machine, an unassuming small thing that paled compared to the other two. A smile passed on his tired face. It all made sense now…
“Sweet pea?” he called, interrupting the baby girl’s meandering. “Come here. I have something to show you.”
She slowly shuffled to his position. “Open your hand”, he commanded. She offered her open hand that wasn’t currently busy with a plush toy or a bag of sweets.
“Now these,” he said as he dropped three golden discs on the palm of her hand, “are very special coins. You can only buy treasures with them. Why don’t you try this treasure chest right there and see what you find, hmm?”
She looked at him, incredulous, as he pointed to the third machine. It looked a lot like an old-timey bubble gum dispenser, with a big transparent dome filled with smaller plastic spheres, and a large handle that needed to be turned to receive your prize. A helpful little sign said that the machine accepted only gold coins as payment, and that it contained surprises for good little ones. It’s the sign that had made Daddy smile a few moments ago.
After hesitating for a moment, she put one of the plastic golden coins into the slot and cranked the handle to the right until it made a full turn. A semi-transparent yellow ball fell into the chute, which didn’t even have a door or flap. She grabbed it, uncertain of what to do.
“What’s inside? Open it up, I want to see!” he encouraged her.
She furrowed her brow. She gave the giraffe and bag of gummy worms to her Daddy, as she needed both hands to open the small plastic ball. After the barest of efforts, she cracked it open, revealing a folded-up piece of glossy paper.
“Fhtickerth!” she yapper from behind her pacifier. She showed a printed collection of little kittens in pastel colors to his Daddy, who beamed a warm smile to her. Not because of the stickers themselves, but because it was the first word she had said to him since they had left the changing room.
“That’s nice, sweet pea. Why don’t you try another coin?”
You didn’t have to ask her twice! She immediately put another coin inside the slot and cranked the handle with a lot more enthusiasm. The ball was purple this time, and it opened to reveal…
“A thtamp?” she wondered out loud, incredulous.
“Oh yes, it is a stamp,” he replied as he examined the contraption. “Look, if you open it, you have a little ink pad, and it looks like it makes a strawberry shape? Oh yes, you can use that in your coloring books, I’m sure it…”
But she wasn’t listening to him, inserting the last coin and cranking the handle like her life depending on it. The final plastic ball was green, and as she opened it, she let out a gasp so intense that the pacifier dropped from her mouth.
“Daddy! Daddy! It’s a hair pin!!” she shouted in excitement. And what a hair pin it was! Red, glittery, with a white cat giving a playful wink. Everything that she loved. The only way it could have been made more for her would have been to feature a giraffe instead of a cat.
“Put it on me! Please Daddy put it on, put it on!” she begged him. She was actually jumping up and down in excitement at the idea of wearing such a cute hair pin. It was so odd to see a grown woman getting excited for such a childish item, but it was adorable all the same.
Her Daddy simply laughed, picked up the pin from her hand and carefully attached it to the side of her hair, carefully as an amateur surgeon during a game of Operations.
As soon as he was done, she jumped and gave him a big kiss on the cheek. “Thank you Daddy! Thank you thank you thank you thank youuuuuuuu!”
The man enjoyed the kiss like it had been the first in months. Today felt about as long as that, anyway.
As she ran in circles in excitement, he cleaned up after her, grabbing the plastic balls off the ground to throw them in the trash bin. He also picked up the pacifier, which he gave a quick clean by briefly pulling it into his own mouth, before putting it in his pocket. You never know when you’ll need an emergency pacifier. And he paid for it anyway.
“You’re ready to get home?” he asked her candidly. “Yes!” she excitedly yelped back at him, and she immediately came to her side to grab his hand.
The man gave one last look at this special little store in the middle of nowhere, silently thanking whoever had been taking care of it, and he took the first step of their long walk back home with the baby girl that he loved so dearly.
***
And that’s about it. Now you know what this place is about. And maybe you understand a bit more about why I like it so much.
… No? Really?
Ah, that’s embarrassing. I guess it has to do with feelings, in a way. I could show you my favorite movie of all time and it can just not “click” with you, right? Because you’re not seeing it in the same context as I did. Just because a particular experience is meaningful to me doesn’t mean it's going to have the same effect on you. Everyone is going to feel different about it. Well, that’s the thing here.
I think this place just soothes me. Like no other place does.
Err… “Liminal spaces”, is that how people call it now? The places that you go through without paying attention because you’re only there in passing? It’s only when you stop for a moment that you realize how odd and empty they are. They’re not pretty, because they were never made to be pretty. They’re functional. Not a place to live in, just a place that exists. Where you exist, for a moment, too, on your way to something more important.
Well, that’s how I feel every time I look at that place. There’s an oddity to it. It’s lost in the middle of nowhere, and it serves a purpose so specific that you can’t help but wonder how it even came to be. It looks stuck in the past, too, like it never changes no matter how much time goes by. A relic of a different era. And at the same time, it’s so well cared for, there’s a lot of love poured into the signs that tell you what to do. So much care and attention went into that store that so few people even know about.
I don’t know. It relaxes me just to look at it. It reminds me of when I was a kid and those big bulky vending machines were something you’d just see randomly in the weirdest of places. It feels solid. Safe. No matter where you go, it will always be there, waiting for you to come back.
There was a time where I came here almost every day. I’d sit down on the bench nearby, so I could have a good look, and I’d just watch it for hours. Just enjoying the noises of the city and the ballet of people coming in and out.
… There aren’t a lot of people coming by, honestly. If I was able to tell you that story before, it’s because I was lucky to witness it entirely, and it happened only once. That’s why I remember it so well. Most of the time, when someone comes in, they look around for ten seconds, then leave. Or sometimes, they will stay just long enough to get something out of the vending machines and go on their way. I can’t blame them, it’s such a specific service they offer here. Not many people are going to take up on that.
Maybe there are a ton of people coming around when I'm not here. That’s possible. I’m not gonna sit on my ass for 24 hours and count how many people come here to have their diapers changed. I’m not that kind of weird, thank you.
You know what I’ve been doing, though? I’ve started to use the snack machine every time I go there. Just grab me a snack or a drink from the machine, it doesn’t really matter what. They have a nice egg sandwich in there, oddly enough. I might be the only one who buys it, but it’s always stocked up fresh when I get one.
One time, I bought one of these sandwiches, and there was a plastic golden coin taped to the wrapper. It’s the only time it happened, I don’t know if that was by mistake or on purpose. I used the coin on the smaller machine, and it spat out a little keychain of that weird panda with rabbit ears. I still have it on me at all times. A little memento of that lucky day. Heh.
… Why do I do that? I don’t know. It’s just my way of keeping it alive, I guess. I’m scared that if nobody buys something for a while, maybe someday, they’ll realize they’re losing money and close up the store. Or let it go into disrepair. No more little man at 3:30 AM to fill up the machines.
And I just… I can’t stand the idea.
Look, I don’t have any use for what they’re offering here. I don’t wear those pampers, I don’t need them, I don’t know anyone who needs them. It’s not even for me. But I feel like if you need them, and you’re in an emergency, that tiny store in the middle of nowhere must be like an oasis in the desert.
It deserves to be open. To be there for people who need it. To exist, even if it doesn't make sense, even if it brings no money. So I’m going to keep buying chocolate bars every time I go by, just to tell them that yeah, there’s someone who still cares, who still wants you to be there, and who tells you to keep going!
I don’t want to see my little bubble of peace and quiet go away...
… Ah, sorry. That was weirdly emotional. I’m just rambling again. Before you leave, could you promise me something?
If you’re ever in the neighborhood, and you happen to see that store, could you check it out and buy something from them, please? Anything, a small bag of candy, a juice box, it doesn't need to be big. To show that you care, too.
Hell, I’d even say, if you know someone that has those “needs”, could you come with them and visit the store? I know there are fancier places downtown to get your butt cleaned up and that they’d rather like to go there, but try to experience this one. Just once. Maybe then you’ll understand. Or not. I don’t know. It’s different for everyone.
And if you don’t do it for you, please do it for me.
So I won’t lose my last little haven of peace.