The Diaper Story Gets Changed (OT)

Of course you remember Lisa Nowak, the astronaut who drove 950 miles from Houston to Orlando earlier this year, wearing a NASA-issued adult diaper to eliminate the need for rest stops, in order to confront a woman she believed was her rival for the affections of a fellow astronaut.

Well, according to her attorney, Donald Lykkebak, Nowak was wearing her normal undergarments: The media had gotten the story wrong because there were diapers in the trunk of her car – toddler-sized diapers that had been there since 2005.

Lykkebak explained that the whole family, adults and children alike, had used the diapers when they were forced to evacuate their Houston home in the wake of Hurricane Rita – diapers that were designed to fit a waist between 15 and 19 inches.

None of which explains why Nowak told an Orlando police detective that she’d used them during her February 5 drive so she wouldn’t have to stop at restrooms (though presumably she did have to stop for gas) – or why, if the diaper detail is a “preposterous tale,” as Lykkebak calls it, he waited almost five months to refute it. He refers to this as “the biggest lie” about the case, which doesn’t bode well for the now-former astronaut who faces attempted kidnapping, battery, and attempted vehicle burglary with battery charges.

The truth might never be known, since the diapers were never taken into evidence.

Doesn’t matter. Facts notwithstanding, Nowak will always be The Astronaut Who Drove From Texas to Florida Wearing a Diaper, because that’s how we’ll choose to remember the story.

• More Crimeweek: ”I’ve Heard of a Suit With Two Pair of Pants, but Never a Pair of Pants With Two Suits”