 Thank you to Discord for sponsoring today's video. Well, hi there, my beautiful internet friends. Welcome to Joe's Petty Party. I am in one of those moods where I want to never talk to another soul ever again, and yet I am dying for someone to reach out and ask how I am, so I can be like, bad. Thanks for asking. I am recovering from shingles. I didn't think that this was something you could get under age 50. I'm hoping that this qualifies me for senior discounts, but I got shingles on my leg. A, really painful, B, super gross, and C, I couldn't walk and still can't. But I did manage a shower today, so we're improving. Okay, that was a super long intro. A memory popped up on Facebook for me today. Of a super sweet and also bizarre interaction I had with a little kid about my prosthetic leg, and so I was thinking back to all of the other stories that I have with strangers. Most of them are great. A few are pretty bizarre, and one was terrifying. So I'm gonna take you through my top five interactions with people about Mr. McNubbins here. Also, I like this stripe sock I picked out for today to keep this little nub and warm. Let's dive in. As previously mentioned, I'm in a state today. One thing that really helps me is talking, which is where today's sponsored Discord comes in. Thank you so much to Discord for sponsoring today's video. Now Discord, you know them, you love them, you probably already use them. Do not check out the link down below to download and join my server, but Discord is a place where you and my lovely internet friends can connect with me and also with each other. I'm actually really excited to announce that I am opening this Discord server for us because I've been looking for a better way for everyone to connect other than just like comment sections and Discord is the perfect place for that. You'll be able to get behind the scenes content, access an amazing community of like-minded people, and we can all communicate a variety of ways from text to voice and more. So I have my Discord server pulled up here on my phone. You'll find channels for talking about all different kinds of things. And I already have three times scheduled where I'm gonna be sitting down and chatting with you guys live. Check out those dates and times in the description down below, and like I said, follow that link in my description to download Discord today and join my server and join this community. I've always felt just crazy lucky that the community that I have, you know, people who have found my channels and pages are genuinely just fantastic. I have had a really positive experience here on the internet, thanks to you. And so this is the next evolution of that community. My Nevensock is falling off, fixed it. Thank you again so much to Discord for sponsoring today's video. I will see you there and let's jump back into it or crawl because I don't feel like jumping right now. They love each other most of the time. So a couple of years ago when I was still first adjusting to the looking like a cyber robot and public thing with my prosthetic leg, I had this little boy run up to me and he was little enough that he like came eye level with my prosthetic and he looked at it and was like, wow. And then started knocking on it like it was a front door. I do not know this delightful little angel but I thought it was super sweet. And so I like launched into my like, oh yeah, that's my carbon fiber rocket foot. You know, my other foot didn't work so they gave me a better one and mid explanation he interrupts me and screams out, I'm a kitten. And then just takes off. My chef's kiss. That is a 10 out of 10 reaction from a kid. And I hope he is living his best kitten life. All right, story number two. This one gets into the awkward, uncomfortable please stop territory. Now it's probably not going to come as a shock to you that sometimes people will have questions about my prosthetic leg. They'll ask me, you know, how I lost it or how it feels. Is Phantom Pain real? Do I experience that? And most days from absolute strangers I'm more than happy to answer these questions in large part because I can see that people are uncomfortable with it. But when people are a little too interested, nope, nope. Hard no. I had a situation with a lady who I did not know. Walking up to me looking down at my prosthetic leg without making eye contact with me because I'm not a person, just staring at my leg. Her eyes glinting and she goes, I have always wanted to touch one of these. Nope, nope, nope, nope, granted odd interaction but what really sealed the deal on the weirdness was that she then proceeded to reach down and start feeling up my prosthetic leg without any kind of response from me. I told the story in a short video I did not long ago and a lot of people asked like what my response was. I genuinely didn't have one. I was very weirded out because how would you feel if someone walked up to you, stared at your legs and then just started feeling them up because they liked legs. And I tried to diffuse the weirdness of the situation by sort of slowly stepping back and like trying to engage her in a conversation and get her back up to eye level but it was so weird because A, that kind of touch was inappropriate if you haven't asked but B, because I have never felt more like an attraction, like a marvel, like something someone would buy tickets to see than that lady's reaction. Okay, story number three. This occurred maybe six months after my amputation. I wasn't using a prosthetic leg yet. I was still using my eye walk and I walked into a grocery store. Still had a lot of discomfort about the being stared at by strangers and public like I wasn't super confident with things yet but I was getting there. I was starting to, you know, feel good. And the lady who actually worked at the store came up to me, put her hands on my shoulders and was like, I just need you to know that no matter what anyone ever tells you, you are beautiful and you need to not forget that. Your leg does not make you less and she started crying as she was saying this. And I wanna make it really clear that that was so genuine and I really appreciate the intention of where it was coming from. She saw something that she perceived to be something I would see as a bad thing, as a weakness, as something ugly, which, you know, I was working through tiny little pieces of but I genuinely didn't feel that way. I didn't feel not beautiful. I didn't feel worthless. You know, maybe if this person was a friend, I knew that I really struggled with thinking no one would ever love me or I was super unattractive and wanted to reassure me in that way because this was an established thing. Okay, absolutely. But this person has no idea of my life story, what I was thinking, if I was struggling with that. And the conversation went on for a long time. She kept telling me like how strong and amazing I am and how don't ever let anyone get you down. Don't let people tell you what you can and can't do. And those interactions are just intensely uncomfortable because it's very clear that it's not about me. I will always do my absolute best to respond with like grace, compassion, answer questions, you know, engage with the person in front of me in the way that they might need to be engaged with. But doing things like that is it just reinforces the idea that other people see you as different and weird. And unfortunately the actual effect of her words was me being like, oh, right, I'm weird. Right, like I'm different. And people think that I think I'm hideous because how could I not think that? Like that was the message I took at the time. But again, I genuinely appreciate where her heart was. It was in the right place. The words just didn't have the effect that she was hoping they might have. Number four, I so wish that I had this on camera. This happened just a couple of weeks ago. I was walking around a store and there was this tiny little baby girl who was barely walking. Like she was brand new to this two leg thing. And she was sort of toddling around the store with her mom. And as I was walking past, she kind of locked eyes with my leg and very slowly, very off balance comes over to me and just hugs my prosthetic leg, just hugged it. And then continued to walk on her way. And oh my God, it was so sweet. It was like just such a genuine, I don't know, expression of curiosity and like acceptance and affection. And she was just the cutest thing, so that helped too. But that one goes in my favorite interactions of all time folder. Number five, here's where things get scary. This is actually the only in-person interaction I've ever had where I was like, I need to get out of this situation because this reaction doesn't feel safe. I had biked to a park by myself. I sat down by a tree. I took my leg off for a moment because it hurt after biking. I don't generally do that in public if I'm alone, but it was a sunny day. Lots of people around, I felt safe. And as I was sitting there just enjoying a snack and my water, a woman about my age came up to me and I heard her sort of yelling and talking loudly and I was just focused on my stuff. Didn't think anything of it until I heard her yell apologies for the profanity in advance. I'm talking to you, you fucking robot bitch. And I was like, what? And she was, she was talking to me and she proceeded to say some pretty horrible things. Entirely unprovoked. We had not had any interaction. She was across the friggin' soccer field. There were kids playing, called me a freak and stuff like that. And I was like, there might be some situations in which I would engage in that. Being alone in public with someone who was willing to get so aggressive so quickly, I just removed myself from the situation and left as fast as I could because I just didn't know where that was gonna go. But that is actually the only experience I've had that was really bad all around. Like other interactions have been uncomfortable, but I'm like, I appreciate the sentiment, the intention. But that one, I was just like, get me out of here, I am done. Thankfully, I was safe, everything was okay. But it was sort of a jarring reminder that there are people out there who really don't think disabled people should exist in public. We should just stay home because we're weirdos and freaks and no one wants to see us. Like that's the kind of stuff that she was saying and what a very small-minded person. I will just leave it at that. So I know I said five, but I'm gonna throw in another story because it just made my heart warm. I train in jiu-jitsu and at the gym, sometimes people will bring their kiddos. There's kind of an area for them to play as the adults are training. And I usually sit on the edge of the mat to get my leg off and on because when I'm training, I don't have my leg on. And as I was doing the switch-out process, these two kiddos came up to me. They both looked about five. And one of them, I know her mom, we've met before, we've chatted. She's asked questions about my leg. I've let her touch and feel things and be a part of putting it on so she has that curiosity, which I love. So let me answer those questions and her and her friend wandered up to me and her friend was very concerned about what was going on with my leg situation and was like, what is that? What happened? And as I was opening my mouth to answer, the other little girl chimed in. That's a prosthetic leg. She lost her horseback riding. It's better now. She took over and answered her friend's questions accurately, which was adorable. And then they both wanted to kind of like play with my leg, see how it worked, feel the squishiness of the liner and how it connects to my body, all of that. But it just, it made me so happy that I was able to show one kiddo a prosthetic leg and hopefully make it fun and not scary and engaging and to kind of nurture and appreciate that curiosity and that she then took that and was like educating her friends about things. I just, it was just so sweet. I loved that. Those are the moments where I'm like, yes, okay, I will always continue trying to connect with people about this kind of stuff because the more we can break down the differentness, I believe the less ableism we'll have, the less discrimination we'll have, the less bad it will be seen to be disabled. And as time and society moves forward, maybe a day will come where kids with visible differences don't have to deal with bullying in school because no one's weird about it. I don't know, dream big, right? School can be a rough place, but bit by bit, maybe we can like break down some of those barriers. Anyways, those are my top five adorable, sweet, very uncomfortable and one heck of a frightening situation. Reactions that strangers have had to seeing my prosthetic leg in public. I mean, I don't wanna seem like I think I'm hot shit, but everywhere I walk, their heads turning. So there's a lot of glances, a lot of staring, but I don't even notice it anymore. It's not something that is particularly off-putting unless it is too directed or too long. That can definitely start feeling a little weird, but generally speaking, people are fantastic and great and just wanna ask questions and I love that. But the interactions that I get to have with people sometimes are interesting and fun stories to reminisce on. As we finish up, again, a huge thank you to our sponsor, Discord. I am so excited to start this little community for us. Check out the link down below to join my server and spend some time chatting with me live. All the dates are listed down below. A huge thank you as always to my patrons over on Patreon for keeping this channel going, for supporting what I do. You guys mean the world to me. Thank you for your generosity. And to you, my lovely viewer, watching this video right now. Thank you for spending a few minutes out of your day here with me and the puppies today. You could be anywhere else in the world doing literally anything else and you chose to hang out with me for a few minutes and I really appreciate that. Also, I feel like doing this video has sort of brought me out of my self-pity party that I was having. So thanks for sticking it out with me and joining me and cheering me up. Anyways, I love you guys. I'm thinking about you and I will see you in the next video. Bye guys.