I walk into the basement and immediately I feel important. It’s my 13-year-old non-verbal son with autism who makes me feel that way.

He doesn’t do it with a round of applause and leaping screams like he does each morning. I’m a celebrity to this kid when I first go to start his day. He treats me like royalty.

The basement entrances are different. I don’t get claps upon descending the staircase. Instead, I get the same familiar greeting.

Lucas will lock eyes with me and grab onto one of his countless metal cups with tops, including a Stanley I just added to his roster. They all have straws attached and, upon gazing at me, he will shake his cup like a beggar on the parkway.

Clink, clink, clink.

There’s the sound of the straw hitting the sides, but no liquid. As soon as he hears it, he will hand it to me with an expression that says, “Be a dear and handle this for me, James.” He doesn’t ask for much in life, but this is one that he does…and he doesn’t take “no” for an easy answer.

Most times, my reaction isn’t overly friendly. I’ll roll my eyes and say, “Dude, I don’t work for you. Can I please sit down for a second?” That’s when I usually complain that I just filled his cup up.

Then I’ll realize this is a different cup.

How is that possible? This little stinker has them stashed all over the house. There are empty cups under chairs, in corners, and mixed among sheets. It’s as if Hansel and Gretel used special cups they got at Kohls instead of breadcrumbs. I find these things long after he leaves.

When you hear about these cups, you probably imagine that they keep my house clean as they are closed containers.. After all, those metal tops and straws block the drink inside from coming out. This isn’t the kiddie plastic stuff. This is Fort Knox. Liquid goes in and doesn’t come out unless he drinks it, right?

Wrong. If you place the full drink of orange juice upside down in the corner of the couch, as my son loves to do, it seeps out drip by drip over time, making spin art out of the upholstery. I constantly correct him and the worst thing is that he knows.

Sitting across the room, I’ll see him take his drink and pull it from his mouth before putting it top-down on his own lap. I’ll call out.

Lucas! No. Look at your cup.

Without peering up from his iPad, he’ll reach down and turn the cup right-side up, placing it next to him, as if to say, “Yeah. I know.” To add insult to injury, he might even wave his finger, still without looking up, as if to show me he knows “no, no, no.”

What’s so wrong about a cup of water in his lap? Well, it’s the visual shock of having him run up to me sopping wet. I imagine every possible thing it can be and, aside from smelling his shorts, there’s little else I can do to figure out what he’s drenched in.

For those without special needs kids, have you ever smelled a wet spot to determine what it is and found out it was water? Maybe not, but parents like me know that water has no smell. So it’s not such an easy task. Our noses, ready for the worst possible outcomes, create phantom smells that don’t exist. Do you know how many times I’ve rushed a pair of water-covered shorts to the wash because my broken sinuses made me think it was toxic? Too many.

My son loves drinking. That’s a fact. I know the phrasing sounds funny, but there’s no other way to put it. He tries to drink the water in the pool and, worst of all, he’s routinely caught trying to drink water from the bathtub faucet.

I’ll leave the bathroom with the water running in the tub, just as he likes it. When I return, I will see him leaned over and fanning the waterfall into his mouth. Once he sees me, he’ll freeze in place, his tongue still hanging from his mouth, and wave his finger with the ol’ no, no, no. I laugh every time, but also bathtime is over when that happens.

This is his jam. He needs his hydration when the mood hits. When Lucas was little, specialists told us to cut his water out an hour before bed. They might as well ask us to cut his oxygen.

No matter how exhausted my boy is, he will demand water at bedtime. Tuck him in, give him a kiss, put on his lullaby videos, and try to walk out without bringing him a cup of water. Go on. Try.

Lucas, eyes half closed, will stumble to his doorway and bang until you return with a drink that he will almost definitely not drink before passing out.

In the morning, that empty cup becomes his projectile wake-up call for me down the hallway. The moment his day begins with his celebrity dad getting him, he has a list of needs – orange juice is one of them.

And the game begins again. Drink up, little man. You got the time, we’ve got the water.