"Toe Story" aka "I Toe You So"

Again, I have nothing to blog about. But that's never stopped me
before. I was thinking about school starting Monday, and then I
read a few blogs. I ended up at Rachy's place, and she had a
toe blog as one of her items posted today. I, too, have a toe story.

A few years ago I only had 4 students in my third period class.
They came in one day, sat down, and shuffled their books around
(to find some work to do before I started grilling them on what
assignments might be missing when I checked with their teachers).

'Susie' said, "I'm really tired today. I spent all last night at the
emergency room." We all leaned forward. The work could wait.

"Dad was outside chopping wood. Mom and I heard a scream,
so we ran outside. Dad had hit his foot with the axe, and cut off
his big toe, right through the shoe. Mom hollered at me--'Susie,
run in the house and get a baggie and some towels!' I ran in. The
baggie was to put the toe in. Mom wrapped the towels around
Dad's foot, and told me to put the toe in the bag. I said, 'Uh-uuhh.'
Mom told me 'Just do it!' but I couldn't. It had big black hairs
growing out of it. I didn't want to touch it. But Mom kept telling
me we needed the toe."

"I went back in the house and got a pair of tweezers and picked
up the toe by those hairs and put it in the baggie. Then Mom
said to get some ice to put in it, and we put Dad in the car and
took him to the emergency room. There was blood all over the
towels."

"When we got there, they took him in and said they were glad
we brought the toe. It took them a long time, but they sewed
it back on."

We were all on the edges of our seats, hanging on to every
word. "So he's still at the hospital?" I asked.

"No, they let him come home. They gave him some pain medicine."

"They let him come home last night? Didn't they want to observe
him after the surgery?" I couldn't believe they didn't watch him
closer--even though this was a hick-town hospital.

"No. They just stitched it back on in the emergency room. He
said the pain medicine worked really good. But then last night
he was supposed to keep it propped up, but he wanted some
more ice to put in his soda. He got up to walk to the kitchen,
and he hit his toe on the leg of the table."

"Owwww!" we all said together.

"Yeah, it hurt him a lot, because when he hit it, his toe popped
off, and we had to put it back on with duct tape."

The room was silent. We looked at each other. "Hey...you're
making that up," I told Susie.

"Yeah. First hour believed me, too."

She really had me reeled in. I was buying every minute of it
until the part about where they sewed the toe on in the emergency
room. I watch ER. I know that you need a specialist and an
operating room to hook up the nerves and blood vessels again.

But she told such a good story.