Right Foot

In October 1998, a little over 6 months after I broke my left foot I was back in school in Youngstown and friends with a girl who lived across the hall my freshman year named Megan.
Megan had moved out the year before and was living in an apartment on top of a funeral home across the street from our dorms.

One night she had a party. There were adult beverages. There was a wheelchair she stole from a K-Mart. Heck, K-Marts still existed in most towns!
I was joyriding back and forth in the wheelchair and curbed it pretty hard, breaking it. Whoops.
A few hours and several drinks later I walked upstairs through the main area of the funeral home and into the apartment to get more jello shots out of the fridge. In the apartment I ran into a girl I sort of knew, but you know...I'd had a few drinks and everyone was my best friend.
She just got into nursing school and was super excited. Around 1130pm I grabbed 6 jello shots, grape and cherry, and started walking down the stairs with her asking her about school.

Then, when I was two steps from the bottom I thought I was really only one step from the bottom and I skipped a step. Down I fell jello shots flung in what seemed like slow motion through the air and my right foot twisted and I landed on the inside of it crunching the outside.
It might have been the pain, it was probably the alcohol but I immediately began to dry heave and felt wetness all over my bottom.
Nursing School girl ran for a trash can and Megan came up the stairs to see what happened. After ralphing into the trash can a few times I asked someone to go get Alaina from our room across the hall and to have her bring my car keys.

I stood up and told nursing school girl I thought I pee'd my pants. She looked at my bottom and burst out laughing. What?!! What!?!??? I asked. She said, you didn't pee, you landed on the jello shots.
Apparently I had purple and red splats all over my tan pants covered bottom.
I hobbled down the stairs and onto the porch where everyone else at the party was regaled with the tale of my clumsiness. We lamented the broken wheelchair that would have been best suited to take me to the parking lot where my car was parked.

Alaina came, laughed and then we got in my car and went to the nearest hospital. The nearest hospital being the one in the middle of the ghetto since our university was on the edge of the bad part of town. I was busy trying to sober up, seeing as I wasn't actually permitted to consume adult beverages legally....
Alaina dropped me at the ER door, I hobbled in, checked in and crawled into a wheel chair to prop my foot up. In the mean time Alaina left the hospital and went to a store to buy me some saltine crackers (I think, people at the party might have sent them with us, I can't quite remember).

The inner city ER was fascinating. There was one very very drunk and alternately belligerent and slap happy man wandering about. He wandered over to me and said, "Whassamatterwitchu?" I told him I think I broke my foot. He pointed to my right foot and said, "Thissun?" I replied yes. So naturally, he grabbed my newly broken foot and said, "When chu get betta, you runna one for da gipper!"
I had no idea who or what the gipper was, and I didn't ask for fear he would start shaking and squeezing my foot again. (Someone later told me the gipper is apparently Ronald Reagan)
About two in the morning I was taken back and put in a room.
About five after two in the morning I was taken out of the room and pushed (literally pushed then let go to roll freely) across the hall where I came to rest by a hazardous material waste bin because a drive by had rolled in and they had more critical patients.
But all that was ok with me, because it gave the saltines time to kick in.

Finally about 430 in the morning we were released and I had a partial cast running up my whole calf with an ace bandage wrapped around it and crutches to walk on. It was the exact same break as the left foot, just on the other foot. But the hospital was all out of air casts and I needed to go to my family doctor for one of those.
Since my parents are early risers I called them when I got back to our dorm room about 6am. I told them what happened and that I needed an air cast boot thing just like before but they can be used on either foot.
My dad said, "Shit! I JUST threw the boot away"
So he bought another one, for another $400.

To this day, that man still has the boot in his attic and he's fairly certain that's why I haven't broken a foot since.