It happened to me: Be Real and my grandma’s life alert went off at the same time

By Cheri O’Toole

Earlier this year, we got my aging grandmother a medical alert device to give us peace of mind and to give her shut of mouth, but another time sensitive program was rising in popularity among me and my besties: Be Real. The app that alerts you randomly throughout the day to take a picture then and there in order to show your friends how “real” you are.

Cut to last Thursday, Grandma’s medical alert started going off, immediately giving me a notification. I was at home making that whipped coffee that was all over TikTok a few years ago (listen, I know I’m late on this but if you had a grandma getting into scrapes ALL THE TIME, you’d be right here with me just learning what the Renegade is). The whipped coffee takes diligence, okay? So sue me, I didn’t check the medical alert right away.

But when I did, I noticed a second notification on my phone: Be Real was going off then and I had two minutes to show everyone I was doing something productive (basically cooking) while showing off my new $600 Smeg coffee maker like, “Oops, did this cute and overpriced drip-coffee machine get into my unplanned selfie?” Like, you only have two minutes, otherwise you look fake.

I didn’t have time to debate. I had an angel and a devil on my shoulder and they were each simply shouting, “DO SOMETHING,” ‘cause otherwise nobody wins. So I snapped a pic, captioned it, replied to all my friends’ pics with customised reaction images, drank my coffee, and THEN I went to check on my grandma.

She’d tumbled down like only 3 to 12 stair steps — which is nothing, a baby could survive that. But I still brought her to the hospital but I felt kinda bad so I brought her through the McDonalds drive through first to get her a McFlurry which she got mad at because 1. “we were in an emergency” and 2. she couldn’t eat sugar because of her type 2 Diabetes. Like sorry I’m literally apparently ruining your life grandma!! Throw me a bone here.

Here’s where the dilemma comes in: she broke her hip which, like, old people do all the time. That’s what they’re known for. It’s like a rite of passage and now she’ll fit in with her old friends. But the doctor said, had we come in earlier, it wouldn’t have done damage to her coccyx (lol).

So, I’ve come up with the best solution for everyone: I added the paramedics on Be Real. Now, if my grandma were to get into another old person fiasco, I’ll be there to get the realest Be Real yet, and alert the medical professionals straight away of an emergency.

Thanks Be Real.

Beaverton