Reality TV Wins Again
or, More Reasons Why Nothing Is Ever Dull With My Friends

Following is the harrowing (and possibly long) tale of a wacky adventure. There was bad weather, injury, a trip to the ER, and of course, much hilarity ensuing the entire time.

But the most important part is that my loyalty and devotion to reality TV came through and made the whole debacle worthwhile.

It all began with a planned group outing to a baseball game. However, weather prevented this from taking place, as it has been raining here for days. And as we convened to begin our trek to the game, the rains came harder. So, we scrapped said baseball plan and decided to instead migrate for the playing of some indoor volleyball. Much excitement abounded. We loves us some volleyball.

But of course, all great adventures must begin with food. We were hungry. So before heading on our way to volleyball, we forged ahead through the torrential downpour to a fastfood establishment for a quick bite to eat. We ran into the building through the rain, as though running makes you any less wet.

It doesn't.

I quickly made my way to the restroom, and then quickly re-emerged, as this fastfood restroom wasn't the most pleasant smelling restroom I've ever used. But it sufficed.

Upon my emergence from the restroom, Friend A immediately grabbed me and 'asked' me to join her again in the restroom. Um, I was just in there. And it stinks!

Suddenly I became a bit frightened. What was so important, nay, life-threatening that I couldn't be told about it outside of the restroom? Where there were witnesses? What was about to take place here??

Well, Friend A apparently had acquired an injury during the 2.4 minutes I left her to enjoy some time in the restroom. It seemed she had opened the door to the restaurant and immediately used the door to do some serious-looking damage to her little pinky toe.

She told me the story. Then..... she showed me the toe.

Good heavens......... is it supposed to be sticking out like that???

Now, anyone who knows me knows that I am not a fan of feet or toes. I hate them. I firmly believe people shouldn't have them. So, not only was I looking at a toe on a foot, it was a toe that was quickly swelling, turning purple, and sticking out at an odd angle from her foot. I mean, Friend A has nice toes as far as toes go. But this toe was GROSS!

I sensed this was an actual injury. And the pain I read on her face helped me further deduce that this toe did, in fact, hurt a lot. We had a problem.

It was time for action.

Friend A suggested a trip to the hospital. I made sure she was serious (she was), then assessed that our evening's second plan would now have to be scrapped for a third plan- trip to ER. We exited the restroom to explain the 'toe-mergency' to our other friends who now had food and were happily eating, unaware of the 'toe-jam' we were now in. We gathered food and belongings, and made our way through the rain back out to the car.

After much confusion about who needed their car, what to do with extra cars, which hospital to go to, and other superfluous details, Friend A and I were on our way to the emergency room. Baseball, volleyball, and now ER. What a strange turn of events.

Now, I've been to more than my fair share of hospitals and ERs in my many years of being around. I've also watched more than my fair share of episodes of ER. I generally know what to expect when in a hospital situation, so in that sense I can be handy to have around. Hospitals are not my favorite place, but I know them. I know the way of the hospital. Let's do this thing.

I dropped Friend A off at the Emergency entrance, so as not to make her hobble from the parking garage, then I went to park the car. I found her inside as she was filling out paperwork. Somehow she had managed to hobble in on the bad toe and communicate to the ER people that she was in need of medical attention...

As I entered the hospital and prepared myself for ER Response 101, I suddenly realized this was the nicest, quietest, most non-ER-like emergency room I'd ever seen. And it was completely unlike the show ER. I'd even venture to say it was fancy. No George Clooney. No Noah Wylie, or Dr. Kovac. And not only that, I'm usually on the other side of an ER visit. In fact, this was the first time I'd ever delivered anyone to the ER. I'm always the one being delivered in my experience with hospital visits. What an odd turn of events! It's a whole new experience! Score....

Finally, all those years of crazy hospital visits as a kid and bizarre ER visits as an adult would finally pay off. I mean, I practically majored in hospital! I totally knew what to do! It had all come down to this moment. I would rise to the occasion.

The other half of our earlier baseball-volleyball contingent called to see what they could do to help. I suddenly remember that the toe-ing happened pre ordering of food for me. I also remembered that I was very, very hungry. So, I placed an order for burgers and our dear friends would soon be making a hospital visit to feed the hungry and the hurting. Me and Friend A. We have good friends. Who bring food. Friend C and Friend L.

But alas, Friend A was soon called to the inner sanction of the ER. We hardly waited at all. Um... what about the food? It's on the way! But since I had no idea where we were now going, and this was clearly a toe-mergency that could not afford waiting for food to arrive, I called the Food Friends and sadly cancelled the burger order. We were now going where no burger could likely go.

The ER Examining Area. Or something.

We followed a group of people to an elevator and rode up a floor-ish. This was odd to me. They herded us through in a group-type fashion, as though all of our emergencies could be handled in a group-type fashion. Toes, coughing, other unknown communicable diseases. Sure! Load everyone up in an in-escapable elevator where our germs and toes will intermingle! It's the ER! We know what we're doing! I actually wasn't sick or injured. But going to the ER Elevator likely made me contract something. I'll let you know as soon as it materializes.

After the elevator, however, we were led to a room. With a bed. Seriously, we just got our own room. This had never happened to me in an ER. This never happens on the show ER. I'm usually lucky to get a bed with a curtain divider so people don't have to see me suffer. But now we had our own room. Or the toe, did actually. It wasn't my room. I was just along for the ride.

Throughout the next couple of hours the toe was seen by no less than seven people. An administrator came in with paperwork, then left us for awhile. A nurse came in and asked a few questions, looked at the toe, barely touched the toe with one finger, and determined that x-rays would be needed. A doctor came in, repeated what the nurse had just said, didn't touch the toe, then left.

We waited. For the x-ray portion of our evening.

And of course, the waiting was accented by the ever-present, sticky-outy toe. It was just there. Couldn't get away from it. It stared at us. The toe.

I began to get ancy. I mean, I was totally up for a night in the ER for my friend. No question there. And sure, there was TV. Oddly enough, Scrubs was on. We watched that. It seemed appropriate. And almost as funny as our current toe-venture. But then, I needed to roam. And I realized this was my time to do the job my Dad always did for me in the hospital- entertain.

Granted, I was likely more entertaing to myself than to Friend A as she suffered with toe pain. But I started playing with stuff. Things I shouldn't touch, but were begging to be played with. I discovered the latex gloves, which were purple, and by far the most interesting latex gloves I'd ever seen. I had to have some! Not only for fun, but for the sake of the germs. I mean, these 'professionals' kept touching the toe without the use of gloves. But me? Even though I was going nowhere near the toe, I wanted to be germ-conscious. Safety first. I wore the purple gloves.

But soon, wearing them wasn't enough. I needed more. So, I blew one up like a giant hand. It was great! A giant purple hand! But sadly, it sprung a hole. And I determined that these purple gloves were faulty and not suitable for intense trauma situations in the ER. Stupid, crappy purple gloves.

Eventually I wandered to the door and noticed that not two steps away was a door that was marked 'X-Ray'. What??? It's right there!!! I was just about to grab Friend A and take her in to do the x-ray myself, when X-Ray Man arrived to take her himself. It's just as well. I'd seen enough of the toe already.

Now, since Friend A was obviously the one in need of the bed throughout our time in the room, she'd had it. But with her gone to X-Ray, the bed was now free. And lonely. I knew I should wait in the room for her to get back, rather than go with her. This I learned in all my years of being taken away for x-rays while my parents couldn't go. I'd watch them disappear as they wheeled me away in a wheelchair. It's heartbreaking, really...

And incidentally, they made her walk to X-Ray. Does this make sense? Hi, she has a foot injury??? Get her a wheelchair, for goodness sakes!

Anyway, I took advantage of the bed and laid upon it. I felt I earned it. For the moment. It was nice. It didn't do anything exciting. But it was better than the hard chair in the corner.

It took a strangely long amount of time for the x-ray to finish. And I say 'strangely' because the ER on this night was virtually empty. Why things were taking so long, I had no idea. I'd watched a few other 'emergency' people come and go in the other rooms on this hall of 'emergency rooms'. But in all reality, this funky toe was the big 'trauma' in the ER last night. I mean, had we not been there with the toe, they would have been completely bored with nothing at all to do. They seemed determined to keep us and the toe long enough for everyone on the trauma team to have a look and do something 'important' related to the toe.

Friend A came back from X-Ray with the news that yes, in fact, she had broken the toe. Now, I could have told her that just by looking at it protrude in an abnormal fashion, as I'd been staring at it for the last couple of hours. I mean, in my experience with my own broken toes, you see that it's not quite right, you tape it up, and you hobble on your way. But fortunately, the x-ray confirmed my diagnosis of Friend A's toe: Broken toe.

It would require tape, the wearing of an orthopedic shoe, and possibly pulling it out in some weird way to make it straight again. Friend A was not happy about this. Mostly about the ugly shoe, though.

So, now we waited for the taping of the toe. I had long since run out of interesting things to do for entertainment, stopping short of modeling the open-air gowns I found in the cabinet of the room. So we mourned the news of inactivity and orthopedic shoe-wearing at the fault of The Toe. We gave it the mourning it deserved.

Soon, the Toe Taper came in to supply the toe with tape and a lovely blue orthpedic shoe. He was nice enough, deftly cutting the tape, and ceremoniously applying the tape to two toes, with great fanfare. One toe being the sticky-outy toe, the other being the support toe. Friend A bravely endured the pain. I watched. She winced. I watched the toe. It was toe-like. After all, I felt at this point that the toe and I had bonded. We had a connection. I would even go so far as to say I now have joint custody of the toe.

As I also watched the Toe Taper (who I'm sure went to many years of school to learn to tape a toe), I began to think he looked kinda familiar. Did I know him? Not sure. Where had I seen him? Not sure. He left. I still wasn't sure.

Soon the nurse came back and after another thorough examination in which she didn't touch the toe or anything near it, she determined that the orthopedic shoe was too small for the foot. A larger one was needed. We would have to wait.

So, Toe Taper came back again after awhile with a larger shoe. It seemed his toe taping skills did not carry over into his shoe fitting skills. But he quickly rectified the situation with the replacement of an appropriately fitting, but still really, really ridiculously blue and ugly shoe.

I still couldn't figure out why he looked familiar.

But, we left the hospital, finally got some food, and I took Friend A home.

Then, it hit me. That toe taping guy had been on TV! His nametag read 'Brook', and the spelling of his name like that stuck out to me as different. I was sure I'd seen him on a reality show of some sort. And of course, this was highly unbelieveable and absurd. But I knew it had to be true. I am not to be questioned when it comes to reality tv. I got on the computer to do some research for my unbelieving friends, who had now gathered in honor of the toe-mergency.

I began to think through all of the reality tv I'd watched over the past few years. It definitely seemed like he had been on a show awhile back, and probably one of those 'bachelor-ish' shows. I searched the internet for any of those shows I could think of.

And I found this. It's an interview with Brook Pemberton, and if you remember from the season of The Bachelorette with Trista, he was the cowboy from Dallas that got booted and called Trista 'shallow'. Yes, the interview talks about him being in construction, but if you read all the way down the page, at the bottom he says he wants to go to school to be a radiologist. Obviously, toe taping is a step in that direction.

Upon seeing this article Friend A has confirmed that Brook Pemberton is, in fact, the guy who taped her toe last night. She could care less. But to me, it made the whole evening worthwhile. Next to rescuing a toe in need, of course.

Really, if you think of all that had to happen for us to be in toe-taping proximity with a former Bachelor, it's pretty amazing. But the truth of it is, these Bachelors are just drawn to me.

I can't help it.

And I thank my friends for allowing me such fun adventures.

Medical Disclaimer: No other toes were hurt in the making of this story, or in the reporting of the toe-mergency on this blog. The sticky-outy toe should be fine in 2-4 weeks.

C.T.