The Blurb

Those of you unfamiliar with The Bubble's new dining hall may not understand this picture. It is a young—and accordingly short—visitor kneeling on the buffet counter to reach the cereal he wanted. Judging from the scattered laughter and girls' voices cooing, "Oh, that's so cute," he made quite an impression on those of us in the dining hall. Judging from the look of sheer joy on his face, he was quite content with his actions. I understand his feelings.

While my profile does not mention my lack of vertical propensity, most of you know I'm no Dr. Brock. Especially since a number of you don't even know who Dr. Brock is. In fact, I stand 5'6". Being short doesn't bother me. In fact, I enjoy it for a number of reasons—like the fact that I can comfortably sit in a bus or airplane, or even the back seat of a Grand Am for extended periods of time. Half the competitors are eliminated before I'm even challenged in limbo. And I always preferred gymnastics to basketball anyway.

Being short does present me with challenges most people are unaware of, however. For example, I'm the only guy on my floor who has to stand on his dresser to reach his top shelf. I rarely see the entire stage at a play. Don't even ask about trying to buy clothes. The greatest challenge, though, is purely psychological.

I'm not referring to the Napoleon Complex that drives short men to be domineering. I'm referring to the as-yet-unnamed-complex that normally sized people have when it comes to hearing us lilliputians. I think that since you people don't see us as well as you see other people, you don't hear us as well either. I should try to find a study on it probably, but I know it's true whether it's been studied or not. It's amazing how many things we say that you don't catch. If you could just hear us right, we would probably be referring to cancer and the national debt as historical problems.

I began to especially notice this problem during my first summer tour with the Messengers. I would say something and get no response. Then someone else would say the exact same thing (I think perhaps as acknowledgement of subliminal awareness of my comment), and everyone would react. The conversation would go something like this:

Justin: "Hey, there's a sign for an amusement park. Maybe we should think about checking that out on our day off tommorow."

All else: Sit silently

[Fifteen miles down the road]

Random Messenger: "Hey, look at that sign for a local amusement park. We have the day off tomorrow; we should look into going."

All else: "Yeah, that's a great idea! You're brilliant!"

It bugged me for a while. Once I realized what was happening, though, it worked to my advantage. By the time the discussion started at someone else's comment, I already had a three-part argument with Powerpoint presentation ready to defend my case.

That's what we short people do—we adapt. We stand on dressers and climb on counters and pretend we like the feeling of having our layup stuffed back on our heads. It's really not a problem; we're just different. So here's a tip: when you normal people try to relate to us little folk, remember we don't need special treatment. Just normal consideration. After all, "All men are brothers until the day they die. It's a wonderful world."