Seven Jumps

It's just taken me seven jumps to get the washing basket off the top of the kitchen cupboard. Getting the washing basket down requires me to jump up and try and bat the damn thing until it topples so that the balance is off and it falls down. It is sometimes slightly easier to try and hook a finger into the gaps whilst jumping, but if that goes badly you can cause serious hurties to your fingers as they tear across the slicey plastic. It might take longer, but it's definitely safer to bat it down.

There are lots of things about being short that make life interesting:

1. People quite often turn a simple hug into a terrifying off-ground experience for you. This might be because they are testing how strong they are, but it will implant a small seed in your brain that people often talk about how much you look like you weigh and cannot resist the urge to check so they can feed back information to the others.

2. Feet often don't reach the ground when sitting in chairs. Obviously, when you're young it's easy to select your chosen chair depending on the little coloured stoppers on the legs. Now, once you're an adult it's sort of harder to tell because chair manufacturers don't bother with it, which is stupid really because adults are not magically all the same size all of a sudden. It might be worth starting some kind of social media campaign to bring back little rubber chair leg stoppers.

3. Reaching for things will often lead to midriff showing so you will have a cold tummy more than normal height people. It's been suggested this could lead to more kidney infections than are generally to be expected.

4. In a particularly big room, audience members at the back might struggle to laugh at hilarious body language if you are not on a raised stage. Obviously, this isn't a big deal to short people who aren't comedians but I'm just letting you know that if you've ever sat at the back of a comedy room and laughed at me, I must have been extra good (from the forehead up) to make that happen.

5. People will find you more attractive than people of their own height. This partly depends on you being totally dandruff free as you will not get away with even a single flake, but is pretty much foolproof. There is a mighty good reason why 99% of female student photos are taken on nights out pouting up at the camera; the looking up angle takes away all hints of a double chin and reminds men why they might want to talk to you in the first place.

6. You will be continually bombarded with people at their worst angle - no one can hide a double chin from your miniature view point, you can see all bogeys in the natural environment and any bodily smells are well within nose reach. Arm pits will become a place you are well acquainted with if people try to hug you. Developing a dislike of spontaneous hugs might be your only way out. This will make you seem quite grumpy but just learn to live with it.


Think all this sounds very exciting? Then you're an idiot. Developing a new found level of respect for all the short people you know? Then my work here is done.