I heated water over some candles a few years back. After about an hour the hubby and I split a cup of instant coffee.
I would be just that desperate for coffee, too!
After a severe earthquake in this area, all power was knocked out for nearly a week, water for a bit longer. The EQ occurred in January at 4:31 AM, so everyone in the neighborhood was quite bleary-eyed by dawn. Fortunately the weather was mild even by So Cal standards, so living on our front lawns for several days wasn't an extreme hardship.
Within 2 hours of the initial quake my husband had our camping stove set up on our walkway. We were sitting in lawn chairs, sipping coffee (our kids had hot chocolate), pondering the disaster that was our house, deciding where to pitch our tent, planning very quick forays into the house to get supplies, listening to a portable radio, and discussing our irritation that this had not, in fact, been "The Big One" aka the much feared San Andreas Fault giving way.
Our neighbor across the street peered over from her lawn chair and shouted, "What are you drinking?"
"Coffee!" hubby shouted back. "Would you like some?"
She yelled across, "I made 8 dozen oatmeal raisin cookies yesterday and just rescued them from my kitchen!"
"I think we can do some business!" he yelled back.
As an aside: We learned many important lessons from that EQ, including that during disasters, your immediate neighbors are your life line, and you are theirs. People at odds with their neighbors fare far worse than those with no bad blood between them.
All openly shared what we had: know-how to shut off gas lines, brawn to move large furniture that had toppled, babysitting while parents attempted to secure a single room for the family to occupy when it felt safe to go back into our houses, batteries to power flashlights and radios, bottled water, food, whatever liquor remained intact, and so forth.
An LAPD neighbor was on the overnight shift. He cruised the neighborhood several times every night, sweeping his car's powerful spotlight across people's tents as a reminder that he was watching over us all. Each morning he provided real information about what was happening in the rest of the city.
It was the worst of times, it was the best of times. Our family learned so many useful lessons during that episode and we carry them with us to this day.
