There once was a legless man who was tired of having no legs. He got so sick and tired of having no legs that one day, he went into a building, climbed the stairs, walked down the hall and to the window and decided if he couldn’t have legs he didn’t want life. So the legless man bent his knees and thrust himself into the air and over the knee-high wall where he fell fell fell to the ground below his feet hitting it ground with a horrendously horrible cracking sound.

The legless man let out a gasp of pain and collapsed.

“My leg!” the legless man cried out. “I’ve broken my leg!”

“What is that, sir?” asked a polite passerby.

“I broke my leg when I jumped from that window!” the legless man explained with fast-evaporating patience.

“Sir, I don’t believe that is possible,” the polite passerby said, “as it seems to me you have no legs at all.”

“But I have got legs!” cried the legless man. “See?” He got to his feet and did a little dance, jumping from his left foot to his right, slapping his thighs. “Legs!” he shouted.

“No, sir, you have no legs.”

“But I have got legs and one of them is broken.”

“Well, it seems to me that your legs are fine—or they would be fine if you had legs, which you don’t—
seeing as you just did a little dance.”

So the legless man squinted his eyes at the polite passerby and asked: “Are you calling me a liar, then?”

“No, sir. I simply mean that you are mistaken.”

“How could I be mistaken? Wouldn’t I, out of everyone else in the world, know best as to whether or not I have legs?”

“I suppose so.”

“So take me to the hospital! I need a cast on my broken leg!” insisted the legless man, and the polite passerby helped the legless man to his feet and they walked together to the hospital where the legless man promptly took a seat in one of the various plastic chairs in the waiting area of the emergency room and began to massage his shin, which has turned a strange purple color, much like an old bruise.

“Excuse me, ma’am?” asked the polite passerby to one of the busy nurses. “The man over there with no legs says he has broken his leg.”

The busy nurse handed the polite passerby a clipboard and a pen. “Tell him to fill this out and the doctor will be right with him.”

So the polite passerby took the clipboard to the legless man with the busy nurse’s instructions, and, sure enough, a white-coated doctor came to talk to the legless man.

“What seems to be the problem?” asked the white-coated doctor.

“I’ve broken my leg,” said the legless man.

“Ah, I can see that. Come with me, and we’ll fix you up with a cast and some crutches.” The legless man nodded and got somewhat shakily to his feet. “And are you his…?” the white-coated doctor was addressing the polite passerby.

“I just helped him here,” answered the polite passerby.

“This bird-brain here tells me I haven’t got any legs,” the legless man told the white-coated doctor.

“But you haven’t got any legs,” says the white-coated doctor.

“I’m telling you I’ve broken my leg!” shouted the legless man, sounding angry.

“I can see that,” the white-coated doctor replied with calm. “If you’ll just come with me I’ll fix that leg right up for you.”

The patient passerby and the legless man and the white-coated doctor all parted ways, then: the man and the doctor going deeper into the hospital that the passerby was leaving, never to meet up again.

While leaving, the polite passerby mumbled softly, “I still think that man had no legs.”