The "Wee Alarm"

Tonight as I was putting Devin to bed (in his sister's bed instead of his own) I reminded him to use the bathroom BEFORE he got in bed rather then AFTER. I told him "Go in and go potty or I'll hook you up to the 'wee alarm' and you don't want that--do you?" Ahhh, the dreaded wee alarm. I have (through years of fantastic story telling) glorified the "wee alarm" to resemble something of a medieval torture device for the young bed wetter. For those of you not familiar with the wee alarm--let me explain. The wee alarm was a device my father bought for me when after about the age of 6 or 7 I just couldn't seem to get my bed wetting under control. Now the reality was that it was a normal, infrequent occurrence that happened less then rumored by my father but naturally more then I would like to admit. In any case, he purchased a pad that was made of some thin sheet of metal covered in cloth with a clamp on either side that was then attached to a battery. When I peed on the pad it was supposed to send a small shock through the pad in turn waking me, prompting me to relieve my bladder in the toilet and saving my parents the hassle of changing my bedding in the "wee" hours of the morning (no pun intended). Well, the way I have described it to the kids was as if it were THE device used to electrocute Jack Nicholson in the movie "One Flew Over The Cuckcoo's Nest". Now the way it actually worked well, I don't really know. How could that be you might be asking yourself, me being such an accomplished bed wetter? Well, the wee alarm was created by someone who did not have a child with my overly active clever mind, (obviously). My father was very hopeful that the wee alarm would be the answer to our soggy night time struggles. Little did he know I had no intention of being electrocuted just because I couldn't wake myself up to pee in the bathroom. So every night he would turn it on, tuck me in and leave with high expectations. The next morning he would come in and find me just as he had so many nights before not in my bed at all but in a make shift bed my mother had made for me on the floor of their room dry and toasty soundly sleeping all the while having peed all over the wee alarm with no electrocution having taken place. After several weeks of this he finally realized that I had been (after he left my bedroom) immediately unplugging the wee alarm, peeing on it and going into their bedroom in new pajama's just like I always had. He was horrified. I am not sure of the where abouts of the "wee alarm" today but I do know my fathers expectations that a child of mine will not pee in or on something at their house are much lower because of my experience with the "wee alarm". I think he thought I must have taken some sadistic pleasure in wetting the bed, which of course was not true at all. For me the pleasure was in outsmarting him and peeing on the "wee alarm".