That time with the legs.

Every family has those stories. You know, those ones that people tell over and over again because they are unique and bizarre and charmingly characteristic of the people involved? They’re the stories you constantly find yourself pulling out at cocktail parties and reunions, like that time the dog came into the living room wearing Grandma’s dentures, or the time you accidentally found yourself marching in a parade in an evening gown and tennis shoes while trying to cross the street, or that one summer in Italy when a spectacular communication breakdown nearly resulted in a whirlwind marriage to a foreign stranger, or the time your mom almost burned down the house with a board game, or – oh! – remember when you couldn’t get a sitter, so you had to bring your toddler to your meeting with that NARC?

Or, you know. Similar stories.

So, my family has a lot of those. I grew up hearing them so often that I’d tend to forget how great they are, and sometimes I’d tune out at the familiar sound of, “Hey, remember that time I peed with Hillary Clinton?”

Recently, I realized there was one staple anecdote that various members of my family often refer to in passing as “that time with the legs,” but I couldn’t recall what that meant, exactly. The few details I did remember from the story were so disjointed and bizarre that I was certain I was misremembering. Curiosity peaked, I dialed my mother.

“Mom, tell me the story about the legs.”

“The legs?”

“Don’t you have a story about some legs?”

“Oh, the legs.”

“Yes.”

“You don’t know this story?”

“I just realized I sort of don’t. What happened?”

“Well, I got caught on the side of the road with a pair of prosthetic legs in my trunk.”

“...”

“They weren’t mine.”

“Yeah, you’re going to have to start at the beginning.”

---

Nearly thirty years ago, my mother was living in Connecticut with her second husband. Her father-in-law at the time was a World War Two veteran, and a double-amputee. Improper pressurization in the war planes had caused severe circulation problems that resulted in amputation of both of his legs up to the knee. He had two prosthetic legs, which were always dressed in argyle socks and brown shoes.

After her father-in-law passed away, Mama Meldraw was approached at the funeral by her distraught mother-in-law, who pleaded with my mother to get rid of the legs.

My mother was taken aback. “What am I going to do with George’s legs?”

“I don’t know. But I want you take them away.”

Pause. “Okay.” Mama Meldraw took the plastic legs, argyle socks and all, and threw them in the trunk of her car.

It was my mother’s intention to find a charitable organization that would accept the legs as a donation, because there always seems to be an organization for that sort of thing. But she didn’t really know where to look, and once the legs were in the trunk, they were out of sight and out of mind. Months passed.

---

“Wait, Mom, hold on. What took you so long to find a home for the legs?”

“Well, Good Will wouldn’t take them. And it’s not like argyle goes with everything.”

“Good point. Go on.”

---

During this time, Mama Meldraw was driving a ramshackle car that rivaled the VenJetta. It was a 1960 faded blue Ford Fairlane whose undercarriage was so rusted out that you could see the painted white street lines passing below your feet in the front seat. It came as no surprise, then, when she got a flat tire on her way to New Haven.

She pulled over to the side of the road and set about retrieving her spare tire from beneath a pile of prosthetic limbs and expletives. In order to access the tire and jack, she had to remove the legs from the trunk and get them out of the way. Not wanting to place the legs down on the road in plain view of the passing motorists, she set them down on the off-side of the car. Standing up. With the socks and old-man shoes still in place.

Mama Meldraw was just pulling the tire jack out of the trunk when another car pulled over behind her. A very large, very kind black man stepped out of the driver’s seat.

“Can I give you a hand?”

Grateful, Mama Meldraw accepted the man’s offer and directed him toward the trunk, where he hauled out the spare tire and moved to place it on the ground beside the car, chatting amiably. As he rounded the back end of the car and approached the off-side, his eyes came to rest on the legs, which were standing perfectly and silently together in all their argyle glory.

He stopped very suddenly.

---

“You should have seen it. He actually jumped. And I swear he got pale. I could see white all around his eyes.”

“What did he say?”

“Not a damn word.”

---

The tire-changing became a NASCAR event. The jack went up. The wheel went on. The screws went in. The jack was down. The man was gone. Mama Meldraw offered to pay him for his service, but even as she spoke, he was already in his car and pulling away. He did not wave goodbye, and he did not look back.

Before Mama Meldraw took the flat into the shop to be repaired, she removed the legs from the trunk.

---

“You know, Mom, most families tell stories about toddlers saying inappropriate words or grandparents falling asleep in public places. Normal things.”

“Yeah.”

“Our family doesn’t do that much.”

“No.”

“Do you think we can get a script deal for a sitcom?”

“Nobody’d believe it.”