Confession #55

Being short is aggravating.

This post comes about as a result of a very brief but panic-inducing encounter which lasted long enough to scare me but not long enough to cause public humiliation. What happened and how did my height (or lack thereof) cause it, you ask?

I got trapped in a building with automatic sliding doors. Again.

This incident may have only lasted two seconds or so before someone walked up behind me, but still. Two seconds is plenty of time for panic to set in.

(In case you're wondering, the last time it happened, I was about seven or eight years old and got stuck in a grocery store. My mom had sent me, by myself, to take a basket back inside. The doors were already open when I approached the store, but they were closed by the time I had returned the basket and wanted to leave. The sensors above the doors couldn't see me, and the doors wouldn't open. It. Was. Terrifying. I was trapped there for two or three minutes (which felt like an eternity) until another person walked up and was tall enough to properly exit the building.)

Yeah, it's a laughable situation now, but it's still frustrating. I don't think normal-sized people really understand what it's like to be short.

It's really annoying to go places with my little sister, who is eight years my junior, and have people speak to us as if we are the same age. This happens all the time, and it wouldn't be such a big deal except for the fact that she is currently a smaller than average twelve-year-old. Every now and then I get the urge to say something like, “Listen, pal, I understand that you're trying to be friendly, but stop patronizing me. I have a vocabulary full of things that my parents have to look up, so just use your grown-up words, okay?” (But then I remember that I'm afraid of people, so I just smile and nod and let my sister do the talking.)

A couple years ago, my family went to a casual sit-down restaurant where adults were given beverages in non-disposable, straw-free cups. I got a styrofoam cup with a lid. When my sister started middle school, I happened to be with her at back-to-school night (don't remember why...) and was mistaken for an incoming sixth grader. I was nineteen. The day I moved into my dorm room last summer, my family and I went to out for lunch and I was offered a kids' menu. Two months ago, a volunteer Santa gave me a goody bag and told me to be sure and mind my mom and to keep my room clean. Gah!

People often tell me that being short is not a bad thing. Said people have obviously never been in a position where they couldn't even see out of the peephole in their door, or couldn't reach something in their closet without using a stool, or couldn't properly sit in a deep-backed chair because their legs were so short that sitting all the way back would require them to have their knees straightened and in the seat with them, with the result being that they sit forward in the seat to allow their legs to bend but then have to lean way back to reach the back of the chair, while their feet still don't touch the floor because their legs are just that short. Not a bad thing. Hrmph. Oh the stories I could tell! I haven't even mentioned all the problems I faced as a kid!

Sigh.

Okay. I'll stop ranting now. I'm fine, I swear. Just needed to vent. Haha.