Danny laid on his stomach, watching cartoons idly, as he waited to use the latest diaper the company wanted him to test. Finally, he felt pressure building in his abdomen. He got up and bent his knees into a squat. He pushed forcefully, grunting. With a loud fart, his bowels emptied into the diaper. In a few moments, his bladder emptied as well, but without Danny causing it to happen. While he still had some control over his bowels, he’d lost all control over his bladder. When he needed to pee, he would pee, and he wouldn’t get any warning.
“All right, I went both!” Danny called. The door to the testing room opened. A scientist walked in and picked Danny up. Danny sighed in resignation as the scientist poked the diaper, inspecting it, and glumly answered questions about his experience.
“Thanks, Danny,” the scientist said once she had finished taking her notes. “We’ll get you out of that diaper and onto your next product.”
“I’m not doing a time test?” Danny asked.
“Nope! From what I’m seeing here, we need to adjust this product a bit more before it can withstand the stress of a time test,” the scientist said. Danny let out a relieved sigh. He hated the time test for diapers, where he was left to sit in a dirty diaper for a few hours to see how it held up. “It looks like your next product is…oh! Your favorite!”
“A pacifier?” Danny asked.
“Yep!” The scientist smiled at Danny. “Someone will come in to change you and give you your binky.” She ruffled Danny’s hair and left the room. Promptly, a young woman came in. She brought Danny over to the changing table in the room and quickly and efficiently changed him into a fresh diaper.
“Are you cold?” the woman asked. “Do you need any clothes?”
“A shirt would be nice,” Danny replied. Diaper testing was done without clothes, to make it easier to see the results. The woman opened a drawer in the changing station, pulled out a T-shirt with the company’s logo on it, and slipped it over Danny’s head. “Thanks.”
“No problem.” The woman pulled a pacifier out of her pocket. “Here’s your next product. You’re to suck on it until you come back tomorrow.”
“I’m done for the day?” Danny asked.
“Technically, no, because you need to test this product. But you’ll be testing it at home.”
“Sounds good to me,” Danny said with a shrug. The woman popped the pacifier into his mouth. Danny immediately began to suckle on it eagerly. Of all the items he tested for the company, the pacifiers were his favorite, closely followed by the various toys. He felt ambivalent towards furniture testing, and absolutely hated diaper testing. After all, being forced to use diapers was the reason he’d lost almost all of his potty training. He was still holding onto a small amount; he could tell when he needed to go number two, but had to heed the warning, as he couldn’t hold it back once his body decided to start going.
The woman carried Danny out of the testing room. Like always, Greg was sitting in a chair by the door, playing on his phone. The legally gray area Danny had been in while working for the store didn’t apply to the company he now tested products for, so he was now legally a three-year-old, and thus couldn’t sign anything or get paid. Greg, his new legal guardian, signed paperwork and deposited checks for him.
All in all, Danny could have a worse legal guardian, but he was a bit miffed Greg had insisted on changing his last name. Greg was Japanese-American, so his last name was Nakamura. As a white toddler, Danny felt very strange having a Japanese last name.
“Done?” Greg asked, looking up from his phone. Danny shrugged.
“Sort of,” he said around the pacifier. “I need to test this until tomorrow, but we get to go home now.”
“Great!” Greg stood and took Danny from the woman. “Actually, I was just reading about this festival that’s going on in town. You only go out in public when you have to now, so I was thinking this might be a fun way to get you used to leaving the house again.”
“I don’t know…I wanna go home…” Danny mumbled.
“Aw, come on! It’ll be great!” Greg coaxed.