Morning Commute…

The morning commute today was horrendous. It took me an hour and forty-five minutes to get to work, all due to “sick passengers”. Two separate trains in front of me on different lines had a “sick passenger” on it. Despite the crazy commute which I believe involved someone dying on one of the trains ahead of me at Grand Street I got to see one of the coolest things I’ve seen in a long time.

I got to see a man walk through the subway car in a big limp. It was due to his use of a prosthetic left leg. This man sat down across from me, and at that point in time I was able to confirm that it was indeed a prosthetic left leg as it jutted out way left at the knee and I could see that it connected high on his left thigh. That alone was not cool, it was the sight of him pulling his fake leg over, and then laying his real right leg over the fake left one. I’m still trying to figure out why I found this sight to be so amazing, and all I can say now is that I am still grinning from it.

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Totally Different Prosthetic Leg Story…

When I was about 18 I was working at a data center that had phone company reps come in all the time to test the new phone circuits that were being installed. One time we didn’t get the usual phone technician, we got some older man who was about 50 years old. This guy “Mike” that I worked with spotted the new guy and noticed that the new phone tech had a weird shoes on, and went over and pointed out the fact that the man whom he had never met was wearing a weird shoe – Mike is from Brooklyn, us Brooklyn people for some odd reason find nothing wrong with pointing out weird features of strangers….

Anyways, Mike went on and on and on about how this mans shoe looked weird, and then asked to see the top portion of the shoe. The phone tech was a pleasant man and simply lifted the cuff of his pants to show the top portion of his shoe, which allowed the sight of the sock too. At this point Mike noticed how skinny the mans ankle was. Mike immediately shouted for everyone in earshot to come take a look, and everyone came immediately.

Laughing up a storm Mike pointed out how the mans shoe was weird and wanted everyone to see the ankle too. Mike said to the phone tech, “You have the skinniest ankle I’ve ever seen, that’s funny.” To which the phone tech man matter of factly replied, “I stepped on a mine in Vietnam and wear a prosthetic leg.

Everyone immediately dispersed away from the phone tech man and laughed at Mike, and Mike was left standing next the phone tech guy looking like a fool with an innocent look on his face, while I was left without words standing next to Mike.