[Insert leg-related pun here]
To those readers who might well be of the opinion that I haven’t been doing enough to maintain this site’s hard-won reputation as the nation’s premier Legblog, I humbly offer the following small anecdote.
The scene: yesterday afternoon, in a grey and uninspiring corridor near to my grey and uninspiring desk, located within a grey and uninspiring office building in grey and uninspiring west London. One infamous Legblogger is gingerly making his way along the aforementioned corridor on crutches, with the help and support of Lurch, his trusty metal appendage. Suddenly, bustling towards him, he spies a female acquaintance whose name he doesn’t remember and whom he has not seen in over a year — not seen, in fact, since he was last in this place and walking with two legs that at the time were most definitely made of skin and bone and other tissue-like materials, rather than just the one and a half examples of such that he now finds himself using. The acquaintance is looking worried. Very worried.
Pleasantries are exchanged, along with the sort of tedious small talk that people will unfortunately insist on engaging in when they haven’t bumped into each other along those grey and uninspiring corridors for some considerable time, before she looks enquiringly at my right leg (although, to be fair, she may simply have been admiring its curiously shapely form) and nervously broaches the subject that’s obviously been preying on her mind since she clapped eyes on me.
“Is that, like, a false leg?”
Within an instant, a familiar battle has broken out and is wreaking bloody carnage inside my head. On one side are the forces of Politeness and Decency, desperately gazing up to the heavens whilst feverishly chanting their mantra: “Be nice, be pleasant, be friendly! Be nice, be pleasant, be friendly!” On the other side, however, there’s just one maniacal voice, which still somehow manages to almost drown out the angelic choir. It cackles away, whispering evil thoughts in my ear and urging me to respond, in a tone that would no doubt be so thick with vitriol that it could be spread on toast and called molasses: “No, it really is a false leg”.
I don’t, of course. I’m far too passive-aggressive for that. Instead, I aim squarely at a reassuringly bland and inoffensive middle point between charming chit-chat and withering put-down.
“Well, it’s usually called a prosthetic limb …”
Unfortunately, this particular female acquaintance (whose name I still don’t remember) is seemingly suffering from the disastrous speech-related after-effects of having shoved her dentures somewhat clumsily into her mouth earlier that morning.
“Oh right, yes. Of course. A prophetic limb.”
And at that moment, I find myself wishing that my prosthetic limb, my false leg, my metal appendage, Lurch — whatever you wish to call it — really did possess such powers of prophecy, such gifts of foresight. Maybe just in the area of satellite navigation, to be honest. Because then it would instantly know where I was going, point me in the right direction and — before I even had time to bid my colleague farewell with the familiar meejah cry of “Must do coffee soon!” — get me out of there pretty damn sharpish.
As it is, I set my face into a rictus grin and force myself to endure another five minutes of idle banter about prophetic limbs. Or pathetic limbs. I forget. A friend of her uncle had one, you know? That’s how she recognised mine, you know? It’s marvellous what they can do with technology today, you know? You know? You know?
Yes, I do know, thank you. Sorry, I really must go. I think my leg is beginning to rust. Either that, or it’s got a screw loose.