i got a bone in my leg!

My dad likes to say that he has a bone in his leg. It's not that he spontaneously goes into anatomy lectures about the tibia or the femur. Usually, he'll say it when he's getting up after a long period of sitting down, like some sort of exclamation his body makes as it creaks into action, "Oh, I got a bone in my leg!" I think it's funny and ridiculous, and I've taken to saying it, just because I want to be like my dad in that I want to be the kind of person who says funny and ridiculous things. Every time I use it, I can hear my nephew earnestly protesting, "But everyone has a bone in their leg!"

My dad injured his leg at a friendly, yet aggressive Thanksgiving basketball game. My mother took him to the doctor, which proved to me that Daddy was in some pain. My father is one of those old-fashioned, stoic types who doesn't trust doctors and avoids them if at all possible. But he went, and the doctor told him that he had chipped a bone.

My mother was telling me this story, and I immediately laughed and said, "He's got a bone in his leg!" Then I felt bad, because my dear, old father was suffering, and I was making jokes.

"That's exactly what he said," my mother responded. "The doctor looked at him like he was crazy."

The treatment plan for a bone in the leg is pain killers and a soft brace. My parents had to go to Kansas this week to see my mother's family while my father was in this hobbling condition. I realized that my father was going to meet dozens of people who would ask him what happened, and I just knew that he would say, "I got a bone in my leg!" as the complete explanation, probably not even bothering to elaborate further despite all the confused looks he would receive. I can just imagine my mother's continued frustration at having to explain exactly what that phrase means in Daddy-speak.

I think my daddy is nuts.