Can’t we just let kids play?
Spotted in Sainsbury’s today. This is a character from a Lego playset called Friends. Her name is Autumn. There are three pictures of her on the box so I can confirm she is an amputee. Not, like, a half-built figure in progress.
She’s pictured on the front with a playmate, Leo, who is a brown person with pink shorts and a pink floral shirt.
Eh. The Danes. They could at least have given the poor girl a hook so she could feed the rabbits.
Story related. When I was about six, my parents were about to throw a party. My mother explained to my brother and me beforehand that one of the guests had lost both her legs (car accident, I think) and would be coming in on crutches and we were on no account to stare or make a big deal of it.
Comes the evening, an attractive young woman sweeps in without her prosthetics, a man on either side holding carrying her by the elbows. My mother took one look and shouted “OH MY GOD, WHERE ARE YOUR LEGS?”
Her legs were in the shop. I’m told our faces, staring at Mother, were beyond horrified.
One more. Some years later, my mother’s best friend had a prosthetic leg. She had an old wooden one (her swimming leg; she could float all day) and she kept it propped up against the wall in her bathroom.
Every time I went into her bathroom and spotted the leg, I blurted out, “oh, I’m sorry!” You know, like I’d walked in on her. Every time.
May 20, 2024 — 7:48 pm
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