After bedtime, I would grab a book, creep into the bathroom, and hop into the dry bathtub to read. I preferred this to a flashlight under the covers. Mom would

After bedtime, I would grab a book, creep into the bathroom, and hop into the dry bathtub to read. I preferred this to a flashlight under the covers. Mom would find me, send me back to bed, and shame me for reading. Then I was further shamed and humiliated when I was fitted for spectacles in third grade. Of course my parents blamed myopia on reading books in poor lighting. That bathroom was actually the site of innumerable playtimes for me. Battleships and Cartesian divers in the tub, Rubik's cube maintenance, trying to get my alligator lizard to drink from the tap. It was a dingy, dusty playground where I felt kinda safe and clean.