The Craziest Knees Ever

In “Anecdotal Tales”, stories will be told. Some will be fun, some will not. Some will be great, some will be less so. Some stories are true, some are merely possible. This is one of them.

The Craziest Knees Ever

“In the morning a man walks with his whole body; in the evening, only with his legs.” -Ralph Waldo Emerson

Stu had a quirk about him that he sometimes found annoying.  He would sit on the couch, look at his toes, and sigh.  When other people sat on a chair, bent their legs, and looked at their feet, their feet touch the ground.  When Stu did the same, his feet were right in front of him.  His toes wanted to touch his eyes, his forehead; they infringed upon his mouth-space when he was trying to eat.  You see, Stu’s knees bent the opposite way of everyone else’s.

The medical journals had clamored to document Stu’s kneecaps when they heard of his condition.  In every other way, Stu was a perfectly healthy boy.  However, there they were; a pair of kneecaps on the back of his legs.  The doctors had refused to operate when he was young because there are areas around the knee that do not take to repairing themselves.  The cartilage in particular was a cause of concern; the experts believed that it wouldn’t adhere if they attempted any surgery and Stu wouldn’t have been able to walk.  Stu remained the same thing that he was upon birth; a singular medical curiosity.

Stu was able to walk, but it had taken him years to perfect a gait that suited him.  Since his feet rose up to meet him instead of reaching out of for the pavement, Stu learned not to bend his knees at all.  His long walk gained him the nickname of “Cowboy”, and he welcomed it.  Not long after, Stu was wearing Wrangler Jeans and cowboy boots.  He took on a saunter and kicked his legs out in long, slow, patient strides.

Running was an entirely different manner.  Once he started bending his knees while running; let alone walking, his balance was ruined.  If he was trying to step forward, his feet scurried to meet his face and he was guaranteed to plummet towards the ground.  However, if he lifted his thighs backwards, and then his calves; then the lower part of his leg would reach out for the pavement.  Stu was the only person that had an easier time running backwards than forwards.  However there still remained the problem of watching where he was going.  Stu found it tiring to crane his neck back and forth to see where he was off to.  This was especially true if he tried to go jogging on trails surrounded by speedy bicycles, other joggers, and mothers with double-wide strollers.  He tried to content himself with walking his controllable walk.

If nothing else, Stu’s knees made him creative.  Stu couldn’t operate a normal bike.  There is an arc of movement required for most bicycles that Stu’s legs were incapable of achieving.  Since he couldn’t change how his legs work, he adjusted how his bicycle operated.  It really was an achievement in the basics of bicycling.  Stu sat rather low to the ground, his seat just high enough that he could skip over rocks and mounds of dirt.  The wheels were still in front and behind him, but for Stu they were at eye-level.  (Whenever he thought there would be puddles on the road, Stu wore a helmet that adorned his attire face so that he wouldn’t have dust and mud to wipe off afterwards.)  The pedals and gears sat right in front of Stu’s field of vision and he let his legs pedal furiously in front of him.  Thanks to Stu’s mechanical skills, he was able to bike as fast as any other person, and he was a good head or two lower on his seat, thereby reducing the annoyance of low-hanging branches.  He did, however, lament the fact that he could never read a unicycle.

Sitting would consistently be a problem for Stu.  Unless he put his legs out in front of him, which was understandably tiring after a while, Stu was forced to stare at his feet.  The human body is not made to pump blood into feet that are reaching for the sky and so Stu’s legs would soon start to go numb.  He tried wiggling his toes to get the blood flowing, but it could never put off the weakness in his limbs for as long as he liked.  Also, he didn’t enjoy having his shoes in the way when he was trying to put this food in his mouth.

In the end, Stu wound up with only stools and beds to rest upon in his house.  Couches and recliners were objects he would have liked to enjoy, but knew that he never could.  When people invited him out to socialize, Stu always requested that they sit at the bar, never in a booth.  Stu’s legs could stick out, unbent on stools.  Booths or chairs in a restaurant were quite impossible for him, he simply couldn’t sit there.

However Stu asked that people not feel too sorry for him. He obliged his friends when they made jokes about Stu being so nimble that he could touch his toes.  He made jokes about his ability to count to twenty without looking down.  And, if one is to look in the record pages, they will find Stu.  Given his unique angle and their close proximity to his hands and eyes, there is no one in the world that can cut their toenails faster than him.

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