So I took Bestest Buddy back to the airport yesterday. It was a shame, because it was awesome having her around. She changed Babby’s diapers and held him while he screamed and even sat him for an evening while PH and I went to see The Social Network (which was exactly what I needed – it was like an intellectual blow job, and the orgasmically brilliant and fast-paced dialogue made me forget for minutes at a time that a Babby even existed).
But all good things come to an end.
I parked at the airport so that we could change Babby’s diaper, because he was screaming in the back seat. Bestest Buddy was just finishing the diaper change when a pair of geriatrics decided they needed to park in the empty space on THAT side of our car. Not on the other side. Not in one of the umpteen empty spaces around us. They saw our car, with two side doors wide open and someone bending into the front passenger seat, and a diaper bag on the ground and decided that they needed THAT space. Bestest Buddy gave them a really long stare, but they just sat there, idling and indicating. So Bestest Buddy had to pull Babby out of the front seat, close both front and back side doors, kick the diaper bag out of the other space and come around to the other side to get him back into his car seat (glaring at them the whole time). Finally there was room for them to fit their car, and they pulled in, got out, commented on the newness of my child, and disappeared up a stairwell.
Not 30 seconds later they returned to their car.
“Don’t forget you’ve left your diaper bag on the ground on this side!” chirped Mrs. Gerry, and we nodded politely while they pulled out again, drove fifteen spaces away, and parked again.
WTF?
Anyway, I hugged Bestest Buddy goodbye, paid my parking, and backed out of the parking space and headed for the exit.
As I drove past the re-parked geriatric car, I saw the gerries getting back into their car AGAIN.
As soon as I was properly back on the road again Babby resumed the crying with the rage and the clenched fists and the red face. He didn’t calm down and my fuel indicator started blinking. So I drove with screaming child and empty tank until I found a gas station and pulled in. I nursed Babby in the front seat for a while and noticed two things as I did so:
1. He had wet his diaper again
2. I desperately had to pee.
So I packed up the diaper bag (the contents of which were still in the front seat) while doing the I-have-to-pee dance and carried Babby and bag inside to use the bathroom. My logic was that I could lay him on the diaper changing table (he still can’t roll over, although he can put himself on his side), pee, and then change his diaper.
My assumptions were faulty.
It turned out that instead of your standard gas station bathroom with a single toilet and a Koala Care thingy on the wall, it was a bathroom with stalls and NO diaper changing table at all. I was desperately full of pee and starting to leak, because my bladder control is still sketchy at best, and now I had to find a place to put my baby while I peed which was NOT a gas station bathroom’s floor.I hadn’t brought him in his car seat because I already had taken him out to feed him and besides, that mo fo is heavy and I almost never lug that thing around. He hates it, anyway.
It took a while to prop Babby in a safe and stable position on the diaper bag, and by this time the urine was leaking in a frighteningly unstoppable way and by the time I got myself on the toilet it was more of a clean-up operation than anything else.
That’s right, I wet my pants in a public restroom in a gas station.
I mopped up what I could, picked up my child, and changed his diaper at the sink. Then I waddled back to my car, pants cold and sopping, laid the changing pad on the driver’s seat so I could sit, and put my child back in the carseat.
He immediately resumed screaming.
I pulled around to a pump and got out (baby still screaming in the car) and swiped my mastercard in the pump.
“Card Reader Error. Please see cashier.”
Oh hells no.
I swiped again. No change.
“Pump Stopped. Please see cashier.”
The cool breeze chilled my wet pants as I pulled my sobbing child out of the car, juggling mastercard and keys into my pocket. Babby immediately stopped screaming once free of The Dreaded Car Seat, and I went back into the gas station with wet pants to see the cashier.
There was no cashier.
I stood there, waiting, baby on shoulder happily sucking his fist, pants wet, until a cashier finally materialized and swiped my card, reactivating the pump. With as much dignity as I could I carried my baby back to the car, put him back in the carseat (he immediately resumed screaming), pumped the gas, and left.
When I got home, I crawled in bed with my baby and camped there for the rest of the afternoon. I had had enough of the outside world for one day.
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