A Simple Request

Let's not forget that Mrs. Hillbilly Mom was still feeling the debilitating effects of the sickovirus on Tuesday. It was not getting better, and perhaps getting worse. It was that acute bronchitis stage, with the fits of coughing and no sleep, and the whistling like a teakettle every time I exhaled.

The Pony and Farmer H were pretty good about ratcheting down their foot speed to walk with me from the hotel room to the casino. It was slightly longer than the length of our driveway, so I'm guessing it was about 1/10 of a mile. That shouldn't be a problem for me, but the sickovirus said otherwise. I was weak as a kitten by the time we got there, and the back of my throat felt like a piece of sandpaper at high noon in the Mojave Desert.

Another unfortunate symptom of the sickovirus was that I SEEMED TO BE ALLERGIC TO CIGARETTE SMOKE! Normally, I can tolerate smoke in a casino. I don't like it. I complain about it by eviscerating those demon smokers here on my blog. But I can tolerate it. Not this trip. In fact, it took me until the second night to figure out that SMOKE was what set off those near-uncontrollable fits of coughing. I could not co-exist with it at all. I had to get up and move if a smoker was in the vicinity.

I estimate that about 90% of the patrons of Riverwind Casino are smokers. But they're the healthy kind of smokers, who rarely inhale. Because every one of them sat with a lit cigarette streaming its byproducts right across my face. Not puffing. Just holding.

Anyhoo...I was worried about a coughing fit when I went to bed. At home, that's the worst time for trying to sleep. In bed. At night. I always keep a bubba cup of ice water on my nightstand. But at the casino hotel, I did not have my bubba cup. I had my purple slim credit union wanna-be-bubba cup. But it doesn't hold much water, nor insulate the ice.

During the evening hours, as we'd stop by the room, I took sips from my 32 oz Diet Coke that I'd brought all the way from Adair, Oklahoma. A distance of about 3.5 hours. Those Styrofoam cups really hold the cold. In fact, I'd filled it full of ice back there at our pizza-slice lunch, and topped it off with Diet Coke. Because I knew I couldn't be sipping Diet Coke on a 3.5 hour drive. Anyhoo...I'm used to sipping my 44 oz Diet Coke at home, well into the nighttime hours. So it was perfectly palatable to me.

The last time we were all together in the room, I told Farmer H,

"Get some ice in the bucket before you go to bed, so I can have some water through the night."

"I'm not even sure where the ice is."

"I'm pretty sure it's by the drink machines on the way to the front desk. Wait. Don't get ice in the bucket. It will just melt. Dump the rest of my soda out of the Casey's cup, and fill it with ice. Put a little water in. That will last all night."

"Okay."

On the long walk to the casino, I pointed out the ice machine. Farmer H and The Pony both nodded.

You know what happened, right? I came back to the room around 11:30. Picked up my Casey's cup for a long swig of ice water. And got a snort of watery Diet Coke with about 2 cubes of ice in it.

Farmer H had not filled my cup with ice and water. I checked the ice bucket, just in case he'd mixed up my directions. Dry as a bone! So all night, during my fits of coughing, I had to sip watery, slightly less than lukewarm Diet Coke.

The next morning, in all my hoarseness, I asked Farmer H why he didn't get my ice.

"I didn't know you wanted any."

Good thing I didn't spontaneously combust. I doubt Farmer H would have peed on me to put me out.