“You can all sell out if you want to homie, but I’m gonna stay short and funky,” rapped Too Short back in 1990. The song quickly became one of my theme songs, and is to this day, for pretty obvious reasons. For those who haven’t met me, I’m a bit short; I stand at 5’5”.Okay, 5’5ish. And my height has without question played a big role in making me who I am today.
I won’t lie and say there haven’t been times I wished I was a little bit taller, or wished I was a baler or even that I had a girl in the hood and I would call her. (From the song “I Wish” by a rapper Skee Lo in 1995) No, there were definitely times I viewed my lack of height as a huge negative. Mainly as a kid, when I knew I’d be one of the last picked and from an early age I knew the long odds against me to play center for the Knicks. So sure, it bothered me. And even now, there are times I would prefer to be a few inches taller.
But being short isn’t without its own perks. I’m not one of those guys walking around with a Napoleon complex. Well, maybe a little but, I don’t meet the definition down to a “t.” There’s been a time or two I talked a little tougher to compensate. I might be just a tad bit argumentative and somewhat of a last word freak. I swear it’s just cause I am always right, why shouldn’t I have the last word? But for the most part, it’s been a positive for me. It’s given me a lot of my personality. My quick wit came about as a necessity. It was either hear the short jokes and take them, or find something about those average people to strike back at. And for the record, short jokes have never bothered me. Only the bad short jokes. So my sense of humor is a direct result of my height. Also I can laugh at myself, and if I make the short joke first it disarms people.
Let me quickly tell you some of the pluses to being short. For starters, women never see my eyes look down to check them out. It’s all eye level. If a store is having a sale, there’s always a better chance they’ll have my size. If I do get in a fight, I’m supposed to lose, which means I have less to lose. Trust me, you’d look a lot more foolish losing to a short guy then he’d look losing to you. Everyone wants to give you a nickname. And the strange bond short people have with each other. It’s an easy ice breaker, and a common bond. What do you average people have? You can’t tease each other about how average you are. Well, if you do it sure as hell won’t be funny. I think it’s part of why I get along so well with kids, we see eye to eye. In a world where they feel everything and everyone towers over them, I do not. It might help that I haven’t matured much since 5th grade, maybe just a tad.
There was a case recently where a girl I liked shot me down, and the reasons given weren’t height related. Later though in one of these MySpace surveys (which are E-Crack for the record) she listed the first two things she notices about a guy as height and his voice. So, sure there are still times that it’s a pain in the ass. And I understand why women want, not just a guy that’s taller then them, but a tall guy in general. I know they just want to be able to wear all their shoes without it being an issue. More then that though, it’s a safety thing. If a guys tall, well he obviously can protect them. They just don’t understand a short guy won’t allow them to get into a situation where their safety is jeopardized. See, the view from here is different and you learn to see what’s around the corner. And would even want to read a blog entry about someone being of average height? Short and funky is much more interesting.
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