French Cannes Cannes' How To Guide - Les Urgences Style

How to End Up in the Emergency Room in Paris - a Step by Step Guide:

1. See mold on the ceiling (not at your own house, don't worry).

2. Be disgusted.
3. Put on a jumpsuit to protect your clothes.
4. Mix up a spray bottle of bleach and water.
5. Spray thoroughly on the walls.
6. Get closer to said mold by standing on the edge of the bathtub. Make sure you are barefoot and that you have nothing to hang on to for balance.
7. As the bleach mixture mists to the ground from all the spraying you are doing, make sure you get a lot on the bottoms of your feet and around the edge of the tub.
8. Lose your footing.
9. Reach for the shower curtain rod - make sure you pull it right off the wall as you go down.
10. Land on the bottom of your foot directly on the corner edge of the tile steps.
11. When you realize what has happened, go lay down in the living room and elevate your foot.
12. Cry.
13. Finish the cleaning job because that is the kind of person you are. Gag from bleach inhalation. Try to open a window for ventilation - yell at the cats in the courtyard who keep trying to get in. Realize that a hopping, yelling mad woman does not scare Parisian cats.
14. Hop back to the bathroom wearing a makeshift gas mask.
15. Create a genius cleaning device by tying a dishtowel to the end of a flat broom. Clean standing on one foot.
16. Hop back and admire your work.

17. Realize that you can no longer walk. Call a cab.
18. Tell the cabbie what happened - let him convince you to go to the Les Urgences (The Emergency Room) because, well, you may have broken your foot. Call Copain. Set in a progressive state of panic - how could you forget he was the son of a doctor?! you stupido!
19. Let the cabbie help you out of the cab - hold onto him as you hobble to the Accueil (Reception Desk). Explain your predicament. Look at your watch - it is 10pm. Tell yourself you'll be out by midnight.
20. Hobble to the waiting room - watch people watching you hobble. Wonder why the two policemen sitting doing nothing don't help you since you are carrying not only your purse but also a large bag.
21. Sit and wait.
22. See Copain arrive with a hamburger from McDo - inhale said burger.
23. Wait. Inspect your foot as it gets puffier and puffier. Think about getting a pedicure in the very near future.

24. See the first care nurses - hold a sugar cube under your tongue while they squirt some crazy meds on it and tell you to hold it there while the sugar cube melts.  Ask them if you can eventually swallow the meds as this was not very clear from the beginning. Feel nervous when they tell you that this crap under your tongue may cause heart palpitations (aren't you already prone to these due to high stress?).
25. Go back out with Copain. Watch Les Guignols on his Iphone. Wait some more. Watch the homeless dude make a pillow out of his shoes and sleep on the floor.
26. At 2am go with the nurses to the treatment rooms. Tell Copain to go home. Get poked. Get prodded. Try to remember your last tetanus shot. Get told you're getting an xray. Go see the Radiologue. Oh wait, she's not there. Wait some more.
27. Look over to your left at the half-naked homeless man who won't stop raising his knees under his thin hospital sheet bedding therefore exposing his homeless nether regions. Look away. Pretend you are asleep.
28. Hear a squeaky fart slip out from under the homeless sheets. Pretend you are deaf.
29. See Radiologue Frenchie arrive - take three xrays of your foot - go wait some more.
30. Avoid homeless flashing that just won't stop.  Roll yourself (in your 1950's wheelchair) to an outlet to charge your cell phone - how else are you going to get home but by taxi at this point?
31. See nice doctor coming towards you with a big xray envelope - let out a sigh of relief that your foot is not broken just severely bruised and a little bit twisted. Feel stressed when she tells you that you don't have to work tomorrow, you have an arrêt du travail and can stay home and rest (what about all of the things on your to-do list?!).
32. Wonder how you are going to walk in Paris - ask the receptionist for a cane prescription. Hobble to the awaiting taxi.
33. Explain your story to the curious taxi driver. Hobble up four flights of stairs to Copain who is waiting for you to come home.
34. Take a one-legged shower to wash off the hospital smell. Write an email to your boss explaining how stupide you are.
35. Fall into bed at 5.45am.
36. Wake up to this:

37. Seriously - consider an emergency pedicure.