Who Got No Reason to Live?

I am a male, five-foot-four. In ninth grade, I was five-foot-three-and-a-half, and Mom insisted, “Don’t worry; you’ll shoot up.” She was assuring me that I would someday be taller. She was right, but “shooting up” was a bit of an overstatement.

Her concern, however, was not misplaced. Statistically, short men really do get short-sheeted in life. They get paid less than tall men. They get less attractive dates, a poorer selection of clothing styles, and, overall, less respect. Who ever sang, “Tall people got no reason to live”?

Even the language sasses the vertically challenged. They get the short end of the stick (which end is that, anyway?), short shrift, short circuited, and short changed. Even seemingly positive uses of the adjective have a hidden barb. A short cut is a better, more efficient way to a goal, but we are often admonished never to take one, that it’s somehow sneaky or morally suspect to take a short cut to achievement.

Yes, society is at times ambivalent about the height thing. Women want to be tall when they are pretending to be supermodels (at weddings, proms, the Academy Awards) and short all the rest of the time. Munchkins are loveable short people, although no one actually aspires to be perceived as a Munchkin.

Indeed, tall gets the nod in most instances. Confident people walk tall; moral people stand tall; strong people are tall in the saddle. Yes, you can tell a tall tale, but isn’t that really a nice spin on lying? I give motivational talks and was once introduced as a man who “although short in stature is tall in character.” Sorry, Bubba, I’m short in stature and short in character, just like Harry S. Truman. I walk short, stand short, and sit short in the saddle, and I’m proud of it.

I fit beautifully in commercial airplanes, coach class, where seats and overhead compartments (they really are overhead to me) are made for people exactly five-foot-four. No one over five-eleven should even be allowed on planes: Sorry, big boy, you’re oversize, we’ll have to check you into baggage.

I can easily rinse the shampoo out of my hair using a conventional shower head. I fit in both a Cadillac and a Miada. My whole body stretches comfortably on an average sofa or a twin bed. Revolving doors hold no terrors.

I almost never have to duck.

Yet society casts its most beatific smile on the tall ones. Take the space program. Back in the 60’s, they were looking for people to shoot into orbit, to fit into the tiniest possible area within a tiny container, which they even called a “capsule,” like it was an Advil. Every ounce was a liability. So, who got to squeeze into the “capsule”? You guessed it, six-foot-three-inch gorgons from the ranks of military test pilots. Idiotic, a waste of taxpayer money, the very reason there is a fuel crisis today.

Whom should they have chosen? Well, think about it. Cramped space, lots of rocking and weaving and careening, moving at breakneck speed, confronting sudden and unforeseen challenges with ineffable calm. Isn’t it obvious where they should have looked? That’s right, they should have shot jockeys up there. Eddie Arcaro, space hero!

But noooooo! The height bigots would have none of it. Common sense be darned. Just make the “capsule” bigger, use more fuel, anything to perpetuate the myth of “The Tall Man.”

And don’t get me started on greenhouse gases. Every time Shaquile O’Neal exhales, he contaminates more of the atmosphere with CO₂ than the entire Seven Dwarfs, with Snow White thrown in.

What can we conclude from all this? I am sure some among you will simply accuse me of having “Short Man’s Syndrome,” a disease invented by the same people that prescribe growth hormones for healthy boys who aren’t tall enough to get on the roller coaster. You know, the folks with Stupid Man’s Syndrome.

What we can conclude is that good things come in all packages, as do the bad. That shortness is not inherently inferior to tallness, unless you’re painting walls.

And, if it turns out your lollipop is on the short end of the stick, celebrate. It’s easier to reach.”