There are three long, rectangular tables that hold about ten chairs each, a bunch of locked cabinets that hold art supplies (except the one unlocked drawer that has construction paper and markers), the drawer of extra condiments, the whiteboard which occasionally sports anonymous messages from the patients, and... the Coke machine.
The type of machine we had. Who knew it'd cause such drama.
This example is from At Your Service vending.
I didn't pay much attention to the Coke machine since I believe that Diet Coke is the elixir of life, but the machine only dispensed caffeine-free Diet Coke and that's just unacceptable. Also, everything was $1.50 and it's not like I was carrying my wallet with me on the ward. But having a Coke machine adds a certain amount of normalcy to the situation. Yes, we might be wearing hospital gowns and taking fistful of pills, wandering aimlessly around the nurses' station in endless laps, but at least there are Coca-Cola products available. But the machine was really more for visitors and staff than the patients.
Patient F was undeterred by this generalization about the machine's purpose. Now, Patient F was a source of some interest for me, if not great irritation. For one, when he bothered to go to groups, which wasn't often, he was one of the mysterious patients who refused to say why he was there, leaving me to just wonder what his problems were. He would only say either that he "just wasn't supposed to be here," or he'd say something along the lines of "I must have said something wrong down in the ER." When pressed as to what he said in the ER, he'd just say that he'd rather not repeat it. And that was the end of it. Not a lot to go on, but enough for my imagination to wander. My favorite of my ridiculous theories was that he drank an entire bottle of Ranch dressing that was probably expired and the ER staff assumed it was an attempted suicide via buttermilk overdose.
But back to the Coke machine. Patient F was the primary patron of that Coke machine. After he'd used all his own money on Fanta (if he'd even had any money to begin with), he would start asking staff and other patients for spare change so he could get another taste of that sugary orange goodness. Somehow he got enough money at least twice, for twice he disrupted Education Group with the chikchikchikCLINK, chikchikchikCLINK of dropped coins -- coin after coin after coin -- into the machine. The disruption infuriated Therapist Chipmunk. Both times she asked him to leave, so he would press the button to get back what coins he'd already put in (clangclangclangclang!), then go wait outside the kitchen area until group was over.
The first time he asked me for change, I just shrugged it off and told him, "I got nothin', dude." (For some reason he struck me as a "dude.") But the panhandling was a daily occurrence, and he asked everyone for change, staff and patients -- even the patients who were practically comatose. What was he expecting from them? They'd snap out of their stupor and dig through their pockets for him? Also, what patient on a psych ward is carrying money on them anyway? It's not like there's much of a use for it.
Then, one day, the Coke machine broke.
It's like Patient F couldn't handle the loss. He kept trying to use it, despite the OUT OF ORDR that would flash across the tiny display (yes, for some reason there was no E, it indeed said ORDR because the display was too small for five letters). Like, if he just ignored it, the machine might work anyway. To fight his denial, Patient L and I made a big "OUT OF ORDER" sign out of construction paper and put it up on the machine with tape requested from the nurses' station.
(Unfortunately Patient X tore the sign down with his inexplicable, silent focus. Patient L yelled and screamed at him but it made no difference. Either he didn't understand her because he doesn't speak English, or he just wasn't in a mental place that allowed him to notice others. Patient X just calmly crumpled up the paper and threw it in the garbage as the staff came running. Patient L tried making another sign, but Patient X just tore it down again within an hour. But that's beside the point.)
When Patient F finally came to terms with the loss of the Coke machine, he changed his tactics. He noticed that I drank Diet Coke, which my parents brought for me whenever they visited. He started asking if I would give him any Diet Coke. Since I only ever had one bottle at a time, I of course told him "no." Tch. Not that I would ever give him any my precious Diet Coke. It's the elixir of life, for chrissake. I'm not sharing.
But my negative responses didn't stop him from asking me every day, whether or not I even had a Diet Coke in sight. He'd focused his sights on me as a potential source of carbonated beverages, and he wasn't going to give up easily.
It was when he asked me if I would give him a Diet Coke, while I was on the phone, that I snapped.
"Dude," I enunciated, as if I could express in one word all my exasperation with his rudeness and futile doggedness. "No. I don't have Diet Coke for you. I will never have Diet Coke for you. I'm on the phone. Leave me alone."
He never asked me again.
Patient F still asked other patients for things, though. As I mentioned in the previous post, he was the master of "Are you gonna eat that?", and was a post-meal scavenger of the tray cart. Watching him pick at someone else's discarded and undoubtedly cold fries was a little disturbing, though not as disturbing as when he'd come into the kitchen area and raid the condiment drawer. He would eat the little packets of apple jelly and Ranch dressing. Just open them up and squeeze them right into his mouth. The Ranch packets he'd do three at a time. I gagged a little every time I saw him do it. Grrroooossssssssssss. Gross, gross. (It was the sucking down Ranch packets that made me imagine him going to the ER for a buttermilk overdose.)
Combine the panhandling with the scavenging and the fact that he never seemed to shower (seriously, Patient L called him "Mr. Stinky"), and it's hard not to come to the conclusion that maybe Patient F was homeless. Homeless patients aren't entirely unheard of. Patient Ji admitted outright that he was currently homeless, and I'd be shocked if Patient Monsieur LeRoi wasn't homeless.
Anyway, after the Ranch packet incidents -- yes, plural -- it was hard to get the thought of Patient F being homeless out of my mind. Scraggly beard, constantly begging, digging through discarded food, smelling bad. While those certainly aren't the core issues of being homeless, they tend to be symptoms. Maybe the thought of him being homeless should have made me think of him with a little more kindness and compassion... but no. I don't share my Diet Coke with anyone. And being constantly bugged for stuff is annoying.
The only time my homeless theory came into question was when he got into an argument with Therapist Hard Stare during breakfast one day. Therapist Hard Stare must have said something about Patient F needing to shower more often, and Patient F flipped out. For the most part, his outrage was expressed unintelligibly, though I did catch him claiming to be more educated than Therapist Hard Stare, so what did he know? That was just hilarious to me. Patient L and I had to stifle our laughter in our paper napkins.
Unfortunately, Therapist Hard Stare made the mistake of touching Patient F on the arm to try to lead him out of the kitchen so that, if he was going to make a scene, it wasn't going to be while the rest of the patients were trying to eat. That brought on new outrage and shouted accusations of assault. (Because any sort of unwanted physical contact, no matter how minor or maybe even unintentional, equals assault.) The "more educated than you" comment made me question my homeless theory, but the general unpleasantness of the fit that he threw (and so early in the morning) -- it solidified my dislike of him. Even intensified it.
Patient F was still there when I was discharged. And I never got to see the Coke machine fixed. It's probably still broken even now, if that one broken phone is any indication of the state of hospital maintenance.
I can't see a bottle of Fanta now without feeling inexplicably irritated. Ugh.
Orange, sugary goodness.
From the official Fanta website.
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