I can still picture her:
Elbow-deep in a swirl of toilet water, swishing a cloth diaper around like she was rinsing out a paintbrush. Not even flinching. Not even blinking. Just… resigned to fate.
And then came the squeeze.
The dreadful, unforgettable squeeze.
That sound will haunt me until my last breath — a watery, squishy, tragic shlurp as she wrung the diaper dry and carried it across the room like a trophy of war.
The Diaper Pail of Doom
If you grew up in a house with cloth diapers, you knew that pail.
It was always in the corner of the laundry room, sealed tight, glowing with the kind of power that could knock a grown man unconscious with a single whiff.
Opening it was an Olympic-level event.
My cousin once dared my brother to lift the lid.
He opened it an inch.
Just one inch.
We didn’t see him for the rest of the afternoon — he was outside recovering, gasping for fresh air and questioning the meaning of life.
To this day, we call it The Pail Incident of ’94.
But Here’s the Part No One Believes…
My friends insist none of this could be real.
They say:
“No one would rinse diapers in the toilet!”
“No parent had time for that!”
“That’s just gross!”
But that’s how it was.
