Last year, due to a severe injury and infection, I spent some time in the hospital and, later on, in a rehab facility. It helps to know two things - after years of working odd hours, I'm pretty much an incurable insomniac, and I drink coffee. Lots of coffee, at all hours.
In the hospital, this was only a minor issue. I'd wake up, hit the call button, and a few minutes later, viola, I'd have a cup of coffee. After the first few days, I found out the visitors' lounge was just down the hall, and there was always coffee there, so it wasn't unusual for the nurses to see me up at 4 am, pushing my IV pole to the lounge, then going back to my room with a cuppa.
Rehab was a different story. Every time I asked for a cup of coffee early in the morning, I got an excuse. Usually it was, well, the kitchen isn't open yet, they don't have coffee until 7, you'll have to wait until they bring your breakfast. Even then, half the time the sonsabitches would 'forget' to bring me coffee with breakfast. They would bring me frigging grits, which I have no earthly use for, not even for landscaping, but they would forget the coffee.
Finally, caffeine withdrawal got to me, and I'd had enough. I woke up one morning around 430 and called the nurses' station to again ask for coffee, only to be told the kitchen wasn't open yet, blah blah blah. I got up and managed to get dressed, then got my rollator (like a walker with wheels), and set off down the hall.
As I passed the nurses' station, one of the nurses asked just where I thought I was going, and I told her I was going to find a cup of coffee if I had to break out of the facility and go to the convenience store down the street. She warned I couldn't do that, because the doors weren't unlocked until 8 am, and I told her to watch me, by God I was going to find a cup of coffee.
I tooled around the corner and down the long front hall. Halfway down were the doors to the kitchen and dining room. These were locked, and you needed an employee pass card to get into the kitchen. I rattled the door but no one answered. By now it was well after 5 am and I was sure they were in there, making up those damned inedible grits, but no one would answer the door. I pushed on.
At the end of the front hall, I turned a corner, and came upon three of the older residents, sitting in their wheelchairs, lined up against the wall. I'm not sure what they were there for, but there was a nurse with a med cart nearby. I knew one of the older folks, a gentleman everyone called Bubba, and I said good morning to him and the others as I went by. The nurse heard me and, seeing I was from the other wing, asked what I was doing wandering around so early in the morning. I told her I was on a quest for a cup of coffee, and if there was anyplace in the facility I could get one, I was determined to find it.
She called an aid over and asked her to open the little snack room, where they kept the evening snacks, cold sandwiches, etc they passed out in the evening, and get me a cup of coffee. When she opened the door, I saw they had one of these 50 or 60 cup commercial coffee makers, already made up and ready to go.
The three older folks, Bubba and another old guy and an older lady, all perked up at the mention of coffee, and they were watching as the aid handed me my cup of coffee. That's when I got wound up.
"Folks, you have a God-given right to a cup of coffee when you get up in the morning, it's right there in the Constitution, the umpty-umpth amendment, the right to a cup of coffee shall not be abridged." Their eyes lit up and they were like, yeah, bring it on, so I did. "It was the great American patriot Patrick Henry who said, 'Give me coffee or give me death!'" Now they're starting to get wound up, and so am I. "And it was that great patriot Nathan Hale who said, 'I only regret that I was only allowed one cup of coffee before you hang me.'" The nurse and aid are looking at me like I'm nuts, but the old folks are getting into it. "And finally, Admiral Farragut, fighting the British tea-drinkers, said, 'Damn the torpedoes, give us our damn coffee!'"
Now the older folks are laughing and giggling, chanting 'Coffee! Coffee!', except for Bubba, who had a stroke and couldn't say 'Coffee' and instead was chanting 'Taco! Taco!', which was as close as he could get. Even the nurse was laughing, and the aid was even smiling a bit, as she went back into the snack room to get three more cups....
The rest of the time I was there, I had no trouble getting a cup of coffee in the morning. I never did convince them to quit bringing me those damned grits, though.
