Gary's Mostly Pointless Blog

It occurred to me a while back that I’ve never seen Brad & Joe actually drunk and behaving badly.  Here they are at their worst.  I had a lot of fun with this one.

A quick word to those of you that are deciding to dress up this year: please, for the love of Cheese, pick an original costume.  Last year, I saw nothing but Jokers and most of them weren’t even well executed.  Also, ladies, give the sexy cop, nurse, whatever a rest this year.  It’s not clever, it’s not original, and all it says is that you’re choosing to look like a slut for Halloween.  Bra-(slow sarcastic clap)-vo.

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TERROR IN EXAM ROOM THREE

Doctor Alan Baker was experiencing a level of job dissatisfaction that he didn’t think was professionally possible.  His colleagues had told him horror stories about working the Emergency Room on Halloween night, but he never believed them.  That is to say, he was never in a position to care too much about them because he had always arranged a subtle and clever way out of it.  One year it was an obscure medical convention in another part of the country that he had planned to attend months in advance.  One time, he had purposely taken double the amount of patients than he usually did and told his boss that simply couldn’t handle a shift in the E.R. that night.  Whatever the excuse, it was believable and went completely unnoticed until this year.  Time had, as it has a tendency to do when you’re as self-important as Dr. Baker, gotten away from him and October came far earlier than he was expecting.  He was sucked in.

Baker looked over the ER and it was a sea of chaos.  Vampires, ninjas, pirates; all of them in full costume and all seeking some sort of medical treatment.  Judging by the more than faint aroma coming from the patients, alcohol was involved in most cases.

“Exam room three, Dr. Baker.  You’ve got a Wookie with an injured arm,” the nurse said, handing him a folder and went frantically back to work.

“A Wookie?”

Dr. Baker walked into Exam Room three to find not only a barely conscious Wookie sitting on the exam table, but also Han Solo who was entertaining himself with an ophthalmoscope.  They reeked of sour booze and cigarettes.

“Hey doc!” Han Solo slurred, “Wanna drink?” and extended him a metal flask.  It was only the good doctor’s devotion to the Hippocratic Oath that kept him from stepping out.

“Put that away!  This is a hospital, not a bar!” Baker turned to the Wookie on the table.  “You’re…Joseph Crandal?”

“No, he’s Chewbacca!” Han Solo said, raising his hands in triumph.  The Wookie nodded silently and cradled his right arm.

“I’m sorry, who are you?  And don’t say Han Solo.”

“Fine, ya party pooper.  I’m…uhh…Brad,” Brad paused to burp, “that’s Joe, and lemme guess…you’re Doctor House, right?  Not very creative, if you ask me.”  Brad burped again and exhaled.

The mention of Baker’s least favorite show about doctors did nothing to endear Brad to him.  He ignored the comment and went to examine the patient.

Joe’s costume looked like it had once been almost of a professional grade at the beginning of the night.  However, a night of drinking, partying and idiocy had left it a matted, dirty mess.  Baker thought it might only be useful as a horse blanket if you didn’t particularly like the horse in question.  Baker told him to take his arm out of the suit and Joe did slowly and carefully.  Joe looked away as Baker inspected the area.

“No blood.  I hate blood,” Joe said, nearly unable to say anything.

“No blood but you may have fractured your arm.  We’ll have to x-ray it.  How did this happen?”

“N’OK, here’s what happened,” Brad said, raising unsteadily to his feet.  “We were out at the bar and we’d had a few.”

“Really?” Baker said dryly.

“Pfft, yeah!” Brad said, missing the sarcasm.  He pulled the toy blaster out of its holster and began to unsuccessfully twirl it on a finger.  “So we decided to go to my ex-girlfriend’s house with a bag of poop, light it on fire, ring the doorbell and run.  Well, after Joe pooped in the bag–”

“Excuse me?”

Brad swayed slightly in place for a moment and said, “Well where else are we going to find poop…at this time of night…Ninnyway, Joe had been drinkin some shots and had spilled some on his pants…or suit…or whatever it is.  Pants-suit.  So, he lit the bag on fire and then–POOF!  There goes Joe floppin over the porch railing and into a bush.  And on fire.”

Baker stared at him.

“And then we came here,” Brad said, motioning to his surroundings.

Baker continued to stare.  “Why would you want to do something like that?”

Brad furrowed his brow and contemplated it seriously.  “It was a bad idea,” Brad said, offering it as an entry for The Understatement of the Decade award.  “She didn’t deserve that.  She’s great.  Reeeealy nice.  And she had the biggest–I mean THE BIGGEST set of–”

“Alright, enough!  I don’t need to know this.”

“My foot feels funny,” Joe said distantly.

“What’s wrong, does it hurt?” Baker said.

“There’s your problem,” Brad said, pointing at one of his red Chuck Taylors  with his toy gun.  The shoes somehow went brilliantly with a Wookie costume.  “You’ve got a big nail stuck in your foot!”

Baker came around and found a three inch nail sticking out of the top of his foot.  “How did you–never mind.  This will have to come out and you’ll need a tetanus–”

“I’ll get it, doc,” said Brad and reached for the nail.  Before Baker could protest, Brad had yanked the nail out.  A thin stream of blood shot out at regular intervals in step with Joe’s heat beat.

“You idiot!” Baker said.  As he was about to toss him out of the room, he saw Joe beginning to wretch.

“No,” Brad said waving a finger, “don’t you do it…you’ll get me started.”  Joe didn’t listen and decided to vomit in his own lap.

“Oh God!” Brad said, gripping the exam table. “Oh God!  Oh–” and decided to follow Joe’s example by vomiting on the floor.

Baker stuck his head out of the door and yelled for a nurse.

“Phew!” Brad said, looking at a barely conscious Joe.  “And I thought you smelled bad…on the outside!”

***

The next day, Doctor Baker scheduled his Halloween plans for the next few years and they were far, far away from the Emergency Room.

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I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t post this as well.