Issues Of Height...

15 July 2004
Time: 22:24:00 o'clock BST
Author: happyhobbit29
Music: Marillion

The Problem Of Being Short

I’m currently writing to Trading Standards

After months of deliberation I finally decided to put ink to parchment on behalf of all short people everywhere. I don’t think people take into account the problem of being vertically challenged, let me give you an example:

For Christmas, as is my usual request, (because I’m mean) I received a couple of pairs of boot-cut jeans. Very nice they were too, I was pleased with them, until… I tried them on. Let’s just say that the waist and inside leg were fine, the only problem being, I could make another two WHOLE pairs of jeans out of the extra length past my feet… This was NOT good…

Think about that a minute…

The normal person of average height, (say 5”6/5”7 for blokes, 5”4 for girls) has average length legs. (unless of course they’re a mutant, and their legs start at their armpits…) Do they have problems with jeans? Oh no!! Their size is manufactured from London to Timbuctoo… I’ve got a suspicious feeling even in Outer Mongolia they sell polar bear skin jeans in average size!!

“Normal” sized people don’t have the problem of having to pay someone to cut off the offending length and hem EVERY piece of trouserwear they ever buy… Neither do they have the acutely embarrassing situation of having to wear “turn up’s” (if a tailor service is not available) that are bigger than the Titanic itself, and which, if thoroughly investigated, reveal food/glasses/whole lost African tribes that have deposited during the course of an average day…

How many times have I tried to be served standing at a bar, waiting to get the chance to order my AA fruit cocktail, when I’m overlooked, (literally) and someone else is served who was after me. I don’t blame the bar staff, if I was them and saw a pair of hands emerge in front of the bar waving a £20 pound note frantically, i@d be freaked out, and think it was a bad trip, or the effect of last night’s cheese butty….

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t hate my height, it’s just, once in a while, it gets annoying, and, after all, there’s only so many places you can take a stool…

I don’t hate the bar staff/shop staff, or indeed anyone who works at a place that is “non vertically-challenged compliant” and “heightist”… I blame the designers, the architects the planning supervisors, etc. In fact, now I come to think of it, being short in this “personal choice politically correct” world of ours today, could be classed as a disability!!!

In light of these facts, I end this entry with an emotional appeal for Short Designers…

Please short people, let’s catch the vision and create a better future for our munchkins… (er… I mean children)

I wonder what the benefits agency would say if I put in a claim for being “vertically impaired”…..?

(runs off to get pen…)