Danny sat on his chair, legs swinging idly. A customer entered the store. Danny promptly plastered a smile onto his face.
“Welcome!” he chirped cheerfully. The customer, an old lady, chuckled at him as she walked past. The moment she was gone, Danny’s smile fell away. Losing his badge was a big deal, and as such, he’d been demoted. He thought he couldn’t sink any lower than being a Junior Product Demonstrator, but he’d been wrong. There was something lower, and it was being a part-time greeter.
If he stayed on good behavior and enough customers commented on how well he did his job, Danny could get bumped up to being a full-time greeter, and from there could work his way back to being a product demonstrator. But Danny knew that he was at least two years away from being a product demonstrator again. He was also very pessimistic about the chance he’d go to full-time from part-time soon.
“At least it’s something,” he said quietly. As an employee of the store, even a part-time one, Danny still was legally considered an adult. If he got fired or quit, however, he’d be an unemployed toddler with the same rights as any other three-year-old. Which were none.
The worst part about his demotion wasn’t the fact he was now part-time. It was the fact that there was now zero chance a customer might accidentally change him back to his proper age. He was stuck at three until he grew up the normal way. Anna, the woman who ran the employee daycare, walked up to him.
“Shift’s over, Danny,” she said. “Come with me.” Danny hopped off his chair and followed Anna through the store. Being part-time when his roommate was full-time meant there were a few hours each day that Danny wasn’t working but Greg was. Luckily, he had permission to stay in the daycare until Greg’s work day was over and he came by to pick Danny up. The other kids in the daycare were children of employees, so Danny was a bit of a black sheep. But at least the daycare workers knew Danny’s situation.
Anna pushed open the door to the daycare. Danny walked inside. Immediately, Anna stuck a finger down the back of his training pants.
“Wet. All right, let’s get you into a diaper.” Anna picked Danny up and brought him over to the changing table. Danny zoned out as Anna changed him from his wet training pants into a clean diaper. The rule was that if he arrived at the daycare in dirty training pants, he would be put into a diaper. “You keep coming to us wet, Danny. What’s that about?”
“I don’t see the point not peeing myself when I’m wearing something for that purpose. There aren’t any big boy pants that fit me yet, why bother?”
“Hmm. All right, if you say so. But since you’ve been having a lot of accidents lately – though it sounds like they aren’t really accidents – I’m leaving your pants off. It’ll make it easier to change you later.”
“Okay,” Danny said, bored. Anna set him down on the floor, wearing his work polo and diaper and nothing else. Ever since his demotion, Danny had let his potty training fall to the wayside. He started out by using his training pants and diapers on purpose, as he’d been too depressed to try to make it to the potty on time. Once he started using his protection on purpose, he started having accidents. Now, he had barely any warning when he needed to pee, and never used that warning to get to the potty. He did try to avoid messing himself, but there had been a few overnight accidents that resulted in Greg diapering Danny for sleeping.
Danny got to his feet and toddled over to the cubbies, the diaper pushing his legs apart and crinkling like he was now used to. He grabbed one of his adult books and his pacifier, then toddled over to an isolated, quiet corner, and sat down. He popped his pacifier into his mouth. Now satisfied and soothed by the suckling motion, he began to read his book.
While he waited for Greg to pick him up, Danny...