It was the summer of '03 when I decided to spend the summer with my grandparents. At the time, they owned a quaint suburban home in Maryland, and were eager to spend some quality time with their only grandchild. I was a boy of many fears, including heights, resulting in their driving down to Florida to tote me back up because an airplane was not an option (the whole 9/11 thing didn't help). I recall a night spent at a relative's house in Georgia on the way. I remember being too shy to ask for a drink from people I didn't recognize, in a home that wasn't mine. I didn't ask my grandparents, since I didn't want to interrupt their ongoing conversation about nothing with the adult relatives and I felt it would be rude to just grab a cup and get it myself. By the time that infinite blab fest did end, bedtime had been declared, and the desire for drink itched at my throat. I finally asked the gramps if I could get some water, which was politely denied, leading them to notify me that I should've made my request earlier because my dad instructed them not to give me anything to drink too late, lest they were up to the task of early morning sheet cleaning. This sparked a tantrum. It wasn't a typical 8-year-old-I-want-what-I-want-now tantrum, but more of a do-you-realize-how-long-I've-been-dying-of-thirst? tantrum. Nevertheless, the result was the same as any tantrum you want to classify it as, which blossomed various cries for water, tears that only increased my dehydration, futile lunges for the refrigerator, and even wails for juicy, ripe watermelon. What happened next on my grandma's part was way over-dramatic, even by 8 year old tantrum standards. She started rebuking Satan within me in the name of Christ. The overwhelming emotion I felt at that moment is still hard to explain to this day. Though I was too young to understand what happened emotionally, I wasn't too young to fathom what she was trying to do, and my youth didn't bar me from realizing how fucked up that was. I just wanted some water. Now I'm being treated like a heathen. This only made me cry harder, That only made her "preach" harder. It got to the point where she was yelling in my face, as a result of my yelling for her to stop preaching at the non-existent demon inside me. When it became apparent that she would not hear my desperate pleas to treat me like a human being over the sound of her own scriptures, I finally in a last ditch effort to save my sanity broke into a run for the bathroom, where I turned on the light, shut and locked the door, and calmed myself down. My grandma tried to coax me out of there, but I rejected her salvation for the Eden I created right in that bathroom. I planned on staying there as long as I needed to, but there were two unaccounted for variables in my plan; the bathroom light could be turned off from the outside (really, who even thinks of shit like that), and I was afraid of the dark. So naturally, right as the light went off, I bolted right the hell out of there. So much for that plan. We did get over that whole fiasco by the next morning, and it didn't cloud the positive experiences I had that summer. However, it wasn't until 10 years later that I was struck by a thought. It was just so obvious, I couldn't help but laugh at my own irrationality. That scene where I darted to the bathroom and locked the door... If I was so goddamn thirsty... Why didn't i just drink from the fucking faucet?
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