Poppy Legs

Let me tell you about the phenomenon of Poppy Legs.

Poppy1 McLean used to go for a lot of walks. He wasn’t an epic walker—the guy was seventy-five years old and maybe five feet tall—so he went to the mall, or to our house: trips that amounted to less than half a kilometer in total. This was typically followed by a two hour nap.

One afternoon, on the short trip from his house to ours, Poppy found himself walking faster all of a sudden. Just a little quicker at first, so not too alarming, but it wasn’t something he was consciously trying to do. Then he found himself going faster still. Of their own volition, his legs were making him speed up. He started getting scared, because the farther he walked, the faster he was going.

Poppy decided he had to stop himself. Maybe he was afraid he would end up sprinting through traffic or he’d eventually trip and sprawl onto his face. So he did the only thing he could: he threw himself down.

On a rock.

Right now, you’re thinking that a seventy-five year old man losing control of his legs and throwing himself on a rock isn’t very funny. You’re probably wrong, though.

No one was there to see it, so the rate of speed and the size of the rock are all debatable. If you ask me though, I like to picture Poppy booting it, body compact, hands arrow-straight like a sprinter’s. And I picture him falling on a boulder. Backwards. Have you seen the episode of The Simpsons where Homer gets punched out by Bart’s foster dad and ends up bent backwards over a fire hydrant? That’s what I see in my head.

1. For Newfies (and the elsewhere-born children of Newfies) your Grandmother and Grandfather are called your Nanny and Poppy. Just like your Italian grandparents would be your Nonno and Nonna. (In grade school, one of Sarah’s classmates once asked her, “If you have a No-No, does that mean you also have a Yes-Yes?” which, at the telling, I thought classified as one of the funniest things ever said by anyone ever.)