one leggyness
when i was a wee babe, due to complications at birth, i had a foot lopped off. Pretty drastic, in some ways, but one has to make the best of a situation, and consequently, as i am a man of mischevious ways, i found many many ways to make it as amusing as possible. Clearly, as i went to the same school as the legendary Scaryduck (and am in fact immortalised in one of his stories here : www.geocities.com/coleman66uk/life/corridor.html ), the possibilites were vast, to say the least..
Dawned the day of the first cross country run for 1st years - the legendary (and appropriately named, natch) 'sewers course'. A hundred or so skinny pasty 11 year-olds lining up at the top of the playing field, quaking in anticipation of the stinky horrors of running through a couple of miles of effluent, made worse by the Big Boys in the upper years, who'd made a point for weeks of relating the legends of the kids who'd taken the Big Step into the quag. Fuck this, I thought, and 'accidentally' released the retaining mechanism of my placcy leg. Cue the start - 99 kids leg it across the field, one takes one step forwards, performs a graceful face plant into the sward, leaving an upright leg on the start line. not a big problem, really, except for the reaction of the slightly retarded bloke that was driving the mower that day - had to be calmed down by the majestic welshness of mr Curtis, the games teacher - who could barely talk, he was laughing so much... never did do a cross country run.
Some years later, at Reading central swimming pool, a municipal pool of epic mankyness, saw me rolling around on the floor, stump covered in ketchup, shouting "shark! shark!", and spending the rest of the session hooting at the sight of mothers dragging their terrified children into the pool, giving me the most evil eye...
Twisting the old fake leg thru 180 degrees and walking along usually provides much mirth, too. Should know better, at 38, but what the hell....
(micky2shoes has more shoes than feet, Fri 2 Jun 2006, 13:37, Reply)