As I was driving home from work last night, my cell rang and I saw Trey’s name on my screen, which surprised me because I knew that he was supposed to be at work.  As soon as I said hello, he asked me if I could come over to his apartment and take him to the ER because he had cut his foot on some broken glass and was fairly sure stitches were going to be involved.

The ironic thing about his call is that, almost two months ago, Trey had to take me to the ER one night when I hurt my foot.  I never mentioned it on the blog, but one weekend a piece of metal fell out of my guest bedroom closet onto my foot.  I had a house full of people at the time it happened, so I tried to play it off but, within two hours, my foot was swollen to the point I couldn’t put pressure on it anymore.  Trey took me to the ER where my friend Cara met us and I got the pleasure of wearing a brace for almost two weeks.

But back to last night.  Trey lives near me, in an apartment on the top floor of the building which meant that, somehow, he was going to have to get down to my car with a very injured foot.  As we stood at the top of the stairs trying to come up with a game plan, I naturally offered to carry him down the three flights of stairs because, really, he is as light as a whisper.

(I know the phrase is “light as a feather” but I like “light as a whisper” better.)

(Of course, whispers don’t actually have weight, making the phrase not really make sense but, please, just go with it.)

(I used “all y’all” last night without even meaning to; how embarrassing, right?)

So, Trey hopped down the stairs, into my car and we were off to the hospital.  They took Trey into the triage area fairly quickly and, after asking about his foot, the nurse begins to fill out the standard information on new patients, with one of the questions being “what is your relation to the person who brought you in this evening?”  I saw a golden opportunity and decided that Trey needed a little cheering up courtesy of, well, me.

“I’m his girl friend.”

Because I am his girl space friend.  Just not his girlfriend.  But, really, am I responsible if the nurse doesn’t hear the space between the word girl and friend?  Please.

Trey looks at me with this horrified expression on his face, but the nurse missed it and went to the next question which conveniently happened to be “Do you live together?”  Before I could answer for him, Trey nearly shouted “No!  No, we don’t!  I’m old school!  There has to be a wedding ring on it before she’s living with me!”

The nurse looks puzzled by this outburst so, naturally, I decide to clear up the confusion for her.

“We’ve been together for awhile, but he hasn’t put a ring on it yet.”

Again, not a lie.  We have been together in the physical presence of each other for awhile — we were together at the CMA awards, together at Christmas this year, etc.  It isn’t my fault if the nurse misinterpreted the phrase “together” to mean that we were, you know, dating.  Which we’re absolutely not.  Except in the mind of a triage nurse at our local hospital.

At this point, Trey starts looking like he would absolutely kill me if he could hobble over to where I’m sitting.  I just gave him a sweet little smile, crossed my legs and waited for the next question from the nurse whilst ignoring the stare of death radiating from Trey’s darling little eyes.

When we were taken to a room, the doctor immediately came in and, lo and behold, it was the same doctor we had two months ago when Trey brought me into the ER.  He remembered us and we had a lovely little laugh about the irony of being back in exam room again with the same type of situation before he announced that Trey was getting stitches.

I’m going to spare you the details but let’s just put it this way: unfortunately for Trey, the doctor was only able to numb part of the area where he had to do stitches.  Which meant Trey felt part of the stitches going in.  Which meant Trey squeezed my hand whilst pulling his hair with his other hand.  Which meant I started bouncing from one foot to the other because I do not like to see people in pain, whether it be Trey getting stitches or myself when the blood began getting cut off in my hand because Trey was gripping it so tightly.

Trey made the mistake of raising his head up to look at the stitches being put in which about made us both pass out right there in exam room three.  I knew I needed to distract him, so I began telling him how good his hair looked which was actually completely true because, listen, Trey embraces big hair, as seen below when we took a picture together at a gas station around 1:30 a.m. on the way home from the CMA awards.

I feel like this post needs yet another disclaimer that Trey and I have not, are not and will not date.  We’re like brother and sister, from the same big-haired family line.  We want to share each other’s volumizing hair spray, not a marriage certificate.

Anyway, telling him about how good his hair looked wasn’t distracting him enough so, in a desperate attempt to get his mind off of what was happening to his foot, I offered to sing him a song because, you know, that would totally make sense given the fact that Trey is a good enough singer to make it to the judges on American Idol whilst the puppies hide under my bed when I so much as sing in the shower.

For some reason, Trey turned down my offer to sing to him whilst receiving stitches which is so weird because it went so well the last time I sang for him, don’t you think?