For the first twenty years of my life I slept with an IV each night. For the first decade, my father would hook me up to the IV while I slept, but at least a couple times a week I would wake up with heavy bruising on my forearm, a clear indication my father had a difficult time finding the vein. For the second decade, I lived with a semi-permanent catheter in my arm, which I could hook up myself in the final minute before I would fall asleep.

The pros of having a saline/electrolyte drip over the course of twenty-three hours were that I would wake up feeling hydrated and refreshed, and I wouldn’t need to spend a significant part of my hour awake consuming fluids.

The cons, or con, was that what goes in must come out.

I had a second catheter, one connected to a far more sensitive part of my body. Luckily my dad would attach, detach, and empty the contents while I slept, so I never had to deal with it. The notion of your father attaching a pee-bag to your penis when you are eight isn’t a big deal. When you are about thirteen it gets a little creepy. That’s when I started doing it myself, but it wasn’t the easiest of processes and it always cost me two or three minutes of my precious sixty minutes a day.

Over the years, I decreased my IV drip from two bags to one bag to half a bag, until I finally phased it out completely. My body adapted to long periods without water, and after some trial and error I figured out the amount of water I needed to drink to avoid massive dehydration yet not piss myself throughout the night. (I went through a considerable amount of bed sheets.)

Yesterday, I was so preoccupied with Ewen, then the goat, dog, and cat tornado, that for the first time in seventeen years, I failed to drink a single drop of water. The only liquid I consumed was a sip of my father’s scotch. If my dad hadn’t hooked me up to the IV, it would have been forty-eight hours since my last dredges of water, and I would have spent my entire hour in misery, taking small sips of water and eating saltines.

And that is the best-case scenario.

I open the door and push myself out of the seat.

I’ve never had to pee so badly in my life. I ponder an attempt to make it to the bathroom, but there’s no way. It’s coming out. I pull down my pants and waddle over to a trashcan in the garage.

A minute later, I open the garage door and make my way into the living room.

My dad is at the kitchen table, once again Cold Case Detective-ing.

“Thanks for the IV,” I say.