Pedomorashi.

From the root: omorashi, common in Japan, the source of the word.

There once was a website devoted to just that. I guy nicked "Zippy" (if I recall correctly) was very much into it, as were hundreds of his followers.

One day, many years ago, I was deeply into my work-at-home computer programming projects when seven year old S, drifting about the invisible unicorns and such outside, came waltzing in to see what the printer noise was all about. I had just installed a horribly loud impact printer (yeah, from way back then) that sounded very much like an electric typewriter stuck in repetition mode. It was an insistent rat-tat-tat that drew S's curiosity to a required investigation.

As with ASCII code creations of silly smiley faces and more high definition faces of such personalities as Abe Lincoln, I was trying to force the "daisy wheel" printer to simulate bar graphs in 3D. Again, this was many years ago. But S was fascinated with the noise it made and watching the greenbar paper clink out, line by line. My graphing attempts had many flaws in it so I knew my work would require many more hours of fiddling with subroutines and the like and I needed a break. But, I did have a small ASCII program that I'd plagiarized that studied single exit (and simple) maze solving. Part of that module allowed me to follow a maze myself with just the 10 keypad (similar to the WSAD, today) on the green phosphor screen (think of it as dark green and light green lights. No other color.) I thought S would like to demonstrate her problem solving abilities in a maze.

She stood about neck high to the desktop and pressing keys would be difficult for her so I pulled her, rough and tumbled in her dusty playclothes, up onto my lap and set up the program for her to run a simple 10x10 maze. Mind you, my focus was entirely on the programming.

Within seconds, S zipped through the simple maze, declaring it to be kindergarten stuff. I laughed and asked if she wanted to try a harder one. What little puzzle-gobbler could possibly resist such a proposal? I set the maze up larger and watched her begin her intuitive walk. (Similar to the Drunkard's Walk, but I digress.) As much as I would love to get into the concepts.... ah, never mind. It is S who I want to describe for you.

The maze held her attention for several minutes before she found the solution and, with two hands punching at the keyboard, scooted the "M" to the exit. She bounced in her joy and my mind was snapped from turn decisions to curve motion near my manhood. My worry was that, with the next larger sized maze, S would get lost, lose interest, and leave... something that her fragrant hair inches from my nose was now demanding that I prevent. But the same sized maze would bore her enough for her to lose interest as well... and leave.

I challenged her competitiveness, "Sweetie, the next larger size is for big girls. It might be too hard for you. Let me make it the same size."

No, she indicated that a larger size would be nothing for her. My computer, back then, was not world's smartest maze solver, but I knew the number of turns needed would keep my solving program busy for several minutes. I set it up for her, content in that I could caress her shoulders, kiss the top of her head, and watch her study the paths intently for quite a while until she lost interest.

A minute went by as I watched her, holding her loosely, marveling at her as she corrected her mistakes. Oddly, she would not sit still for long as she played with the keys to get that "M" going where she wanted. Another minute went by and her squirming and fidgeting interfered with her command of the keyboard: she slipped one hand to her lap and continued right handed to move the "M" about. I knew, then, that her stay at the keyboard would be stopped abruptly by a visit to the bathroom. My heart began pounding, my tongue grew uncomfortably dry, my breathing felt like fire. I had no idea why her distraction was effecting me so. But it was.

The maze was, indeed, tough but she persevered on both the solution and her fight to prevent an "accident". Several times she would stop the "M's" movement through the maze and push lightly against her thin cotton pedal pushers (I don't know the technical name for this style of pants, but the legs were between her ankles and her knees. I just know them by the name pedal pushers.) She paid no mind to me holding her. I paid no mind to her maze searching.

She struggled on the two fronts, maze and bathroom demand, for several long minutes before she stopped suddenly for a brief but forceful push, then continued on with her maze. I, on the other hand, almost choked on my heartbeat in my throat. I had been wearing just a pair of cut-off jeans and the skin of my leg soon told me that S had not been too successful with her fight against distraction. My hands quivered lightly as I held her steady, one on her shoulder, one hugging her softly about her waist. For what seemed like hours, I sat with her in my lap, intently focused on my imperceptibly wet leg. Then, again, there was that hiccup of a pause, an insistent left handed push, and then moving on in the maze. The suggestive dampness soon became, beyond ambiguity, wetness and there was no doubt that S had wet her pedal pusher pants; certainly not a drenching, but a small, childish "accident".

"Sweetie, you want to finish this tomorrow?" Had I suggested a short time later, say a moment or two after a bathroom visit, I'm sure she would have taken the break. But I intentionally suggested a long time ("the next day" is actually several months long to a seven year old.) I wanted her to have that "accident".

"No, but I have to go to the bathroom." Hah, I thought, as if I hadn't known.

"Um, sweetie," I hesitated to ask, "did you wet your pants?"

She admitted it but kept on with the maze. I said nothing.

Within minutes, S had given up on keeping the pedal pushers dry and focused on her maze. I whispered, "Sweetie, it's okay. You're wet already."

I don't know why her wetting her pants hit me the way it did. She eventually gave up on the solution to that wonderful maze, looked down at the "accident" but, before she could say a word, I told her I would help her rinse off and with clean clothes. To help ease her guilt, I told her it was not a problem, many kids do it sometimes.

There were other times when S would be in mild distress and would ask for Gimwinkle's help with the clean up. Occasionally, I suggested she volunteer: I had become addicted to her.

Guys, I wrote this in GC's "post a response" so the misspellings and grammar mistakes are because I can't edit this and I must head to the grocery store before it closes.

[ Edited Wikipedia entry due to illustrations. ------ Dante ]