The death of a beloved nappy

Clean Cloth Nappies member Jes retells how her favourite nappy was brutally destroyed.

Who knew I would mourn the perishing of a single nappy? 

People are finicky things. We develop strange attachments to inanimate objects and we anthropomorphise them, projecting our emotions and feelings onto them and when these beloved inanimate objects meet their demise, we feel a genuine loss. for some it’s their wedding dress, maybe a school ball gown or their high school rugby shorts. Their first pair of Chuck Taylor’s or maybe a band tee from Jimmy Eats World circa 2008.

For me, it was a gorgeous cow print nappy that was given to me, third hand, by a friend.

I don’t know what it was about his Holstein Fresian printed nappy that had been bleached so many times the black was turning bronze and the elastics weren’t as tight as they once were but it made me feel some kind of way and quickly became one of my favorite nappies to pop on my son.

We had a blissful life, full of joy and happiness until one day the nappy met its fate in the form of a pig called Enchilada.

This story is a brutal one full of greed and medieval torture so reader beware: proceed at your own risk.

It all started on the first sunny day we’d had in nearly 2 weeks. During those two weeks we had had a brown out which is when our power was cut from 2 phase to 1 phase and only certain appliances were working. The washing machine was working however the dryer was not. Our clothes horses were full and our house looked like a bomb had gone off.

Once that sneaky sun came out I knew it was the perfect chance to get on top of the week work of nappies needing to be dried.

I should have known better to hang my shells out on the line. It’s not uncommon for us to have 100km/hr winds and this day was no exception.

I was in the lounge folding washing, looking out the window at my pigs grazing the orchard when something caught my attention.

Black and white patches in the lower branches of a bare peach tree. I put the washing down and walked to the door, took a step outside and realised it was my beloved cow print nappy. 😭

Two things happened in quick succession. The first was I went to put my shoes on to go and retrieve the nappy and the second was one of my pigs, a barrow named Enchilada who was around 45kg and as moody as his owner, noticed the nappy flapping in the breeze.

Enchilada let out a squeal of delight that I’m sure was because he thought it was food although it felt like it was out of spite at the time, and raced toward the nappy and ripped it out of the tree. 

I was horrified and probably uttered a few less-than-polite words towards Enchilada and raced to the gate with the naive hope I may be able to save my poor nappy.

Alas, It was in vain. Enchilada callously tore the nappy by standing on it ripping it in half and damaging it beyond repair before realising it wasn’t, in fact, edible.

With one last grunt he looked me dead in the eye and then walked away in search of a tastier morsal.

I was devastated. My favourite nappy was violated in such a horrific way, in front of my own eyes nonetheless!

From that day forward I vowed never to hang my shells outside again and to get revenge on Enchilada for his brutal attack on my sweet, helpless cow nappy.

But that’s a story for another day.