 Hello, my beautiful internet friends. Welcome back to my channel. If you hear a lot of noise in the background, it's because my puppies have all three of them decided that it's now time to walk on hardwood floor with their claws loudly, continually, and I can't get them to stop. I'm not gonna make them stop. They're too cute. In the last year and a half, since I've become an amputee, I have had a number of really fun and funny moments with other people. Perhaps an unpopular opinion, I love people, I love other humans, I love interacting with them, and the things that people say without thinking sometimes are truly hilarious to me. So before we dive in, know that nothing I'm gonna talk about here offended me or anything like that. I just legitimately think it's funny, and I'm sure I've said stuff of a similar nature accidentally to other people too, but these are the weirdest or funniest things that people have said to me after becoming an amputee. As we dive into this video, if you could give it a thumbs up, that would really help out my channel and help out this video, and I would appreciate it. Allow me to set the stage for you, and this has happened more than once, but it's always in the same situation. I go through a drive-thru to pick up a drink or pick up some food, and my crutches are next to me. Now, this is before I had my prosthetic leg, and I've been walking more, but sometimes I still have to use crutches, so I'm in the drive-thru window, and whoever is serving me can see me, like, waist up and can see my crutches, and more than once, people have asked, hey, what happened? Did you hurt your ankle or something? I'm like, you could say that. It's not hurting anymore, it's gone, and so I'm like, hey, yeah, you know, I had surgery a little while ago, I'm an amputee now, and yeah, that's it. I want to say three or four times now, people have said, oh, I totally get what you're feeling, I sprained my ankle once, and I just, I understand that someone is trying to relate to me, and they don't know what to say, because when you ask a question and you expect the answer to be like, oh, I fell down skiing, and the answer is my leg got chopped off. It's uncomfortable, you don't know what to say, but I think it's really funny when people try to draw comparisons of things that don't really have comparisons, because a sprained ankle is not fun, it sucks, that's serious, but it's a little bit different than losing a leg, and they're not, they're not the same thing. Number two, I was in an airport on my way home from the amputee coalition conference, so there were a lot of amputees lurking around along with myself, and this lovely lady came up to me, she had a service dog, we were talking about it, she started a conversation with me, and then in the middle of the conversation, she pauses and goes, honey, were you in the war? Tell me if it's just me, but I think that that's really funny, because this has happened twice. People ask if I was in the war, not in like a war, not if I served in the military, but in the war, as if I should know what the war is, and these people were of very different ages, so I don't think they were referring to the same one. Super sweet, super friendly, they're just curious, but no, I was not in the war, nor have I served in the military just to make that clear. I have been asked if it could grow back, I don't think I need to tell you guys what the answer to that question is, I unfortunately am not part lizard and cannot regrow my body parts. Another one that's kind of cute and funny to me is so many people have asked me what I do with the other shoe, and they've asked me this sometimes when I've been standing there with my prosthetic leg on, where I'm wearing shoes on it, but I mean before I actually got my prosthetic, I understand why people ask this, but I probably have a couple hundred comments saying, hey, what do you do with the other shoe? Can you just buy one? Can you sell it back? Do you like donate it online? Like what do you do with the other shoe? And so I made a whole video about this a while ago to address the question, which I will link up here. But indeed, lower-limb amputees, if you're wearing a prosthesis, need two shoes. I haven't personally been asked if someone else can try on my leg, try it on yet, except in like a joking context. Here's a picture of my friend wearing my leg, but I know of amputees that this routinely happens to. The answer is always no. How would you try it on? You know, if you can tell me a way that you can try it on and try it out, I might let you try it, probably not still, but there's the possibility. This one happens fairly regularly. Someone finds out I'm an amputee or they see my prosthetic leg and they're like, oh my god, when are you gonna start running marathons? There's this weird expectation from some people that if you're an amputee, of course you must be aspiring to be in the Paralympics or training for a marathon. And the reason for that, I think, is because all over social media and the media all we see about amputees is either not super great things or really inspirational things to people like smashing boundaries and doing crazy awesome things. And so I think there's this like ingrained assumption that if you're missing a leg, of course you must be running marathons. And my response is always internally like, well, you have two legs. Are you running marathon? Because I'm not, though in reality I would like to one day. That is a goal of mine. I talked about this one in a video a long time ago, but I was in a grocery store. I was wearing my eye walks. You could very clearly see my leg is gone. And this little kid behind me, freaked out. Daddy, her leg fell off. And I just thought that that was like the sweetest thing. I love the curiosity of kids. The father was a little bit horrified and ushered his kid off fast. In retrospect, I wish I would have been like, no, no, no, it's okay. Like let me, let me talk to you. Let me show you it. I don't know, you know, feeling the blank. But I thought it was really cute that the assumption was my leg had fallen off because frankly, it makes a lot of sense. Josh Sunquist, who's a comedian and an amputee, has a whole skit about that particular situation because apparently it happens to a lot of people. Can you still move your toes? I'm not kidding. This has been asked to me in reference to the foot I no longer have, the one that is severed and not attached to my body and is in foot heaven, not in reference to my prosthetic foot because that would be a valid question. Um, no, no, I cannot move my toes anymore. That ended a little while ago. I'm like 99% sure that people say this next one because they don't want you to feel uncomfortable and they want to make sure that you know you're accepted. But I have had a number of people say about my prosthetic leg. That is so cool. I wish I had one. And I'm like, no, no, you don't. And I, that's entirely possible that they do wish that, but I sincerely doubt it. I'm just like, no, you know, keep, keep your meat legs, keep those legs. They're good for you. Don't hack them off just to get a cool carbon fiber rocket foot like I have. Let's be real though, it is pretty cool. Like I said at the beginning of this video, I think this is all really sweet, really kind. It's people trying to figure things out. It's curiosity. If you ever said anything like this, I think it's adorable. I am certain that I have said similar things about other groups of people or disabilities that I was just ignorant to know anything about. And I probably sounded, I probably sounded kind of funny. But yes, that is a sampling of some of the things that you get told or asked as an amputee. And I would always rather have someone ask a question or say something as long as it's respectful rather than like hold it to themselves and wonder about it or stare. If you have a question and you want to say something, just go for it. If you've ever been on crutches or you're an amputee like I am or fill in the blank, chronic pain, chronic illness, disease, mental health, mental illness, what are some of the things that people have said to you that you thought were just really silly or funny or gloriously naive? I would love to hear in the comment section down below. Please leave me some comments letting me know your stories. Thanks guys for listening. I truly appreciate it. I am so grateful to each and every one of my patrons over on Patreon for making these videos possible. Your support sincerely means so much to me. If you're interested in what Patreon is or how you can see blooper videos or behind the scenes or anything like that, check out this link right here. That is my Patreon and I would be honored if you would consider joining that community. Thank you for spending a few minutes out of your day here with me today. You could be anywhere in the world doing anything and you chose to spend it with me for a few minutes. So thank you. I love you guys. I'm thinking about you and I'll see you in the next video. Bye guys.