Just because you're tall...

My friends are always getting on my case for all of the extra attention that they think I get just because I'm a little taller than them. Okay, maybe I'm alot taller than them. Many of my good friends are a little challenged in the height department. I have a handful of "my-size" friends, but the overwhelming majority fit into that average height category, which in the U.S. is about 5'9". I remember 5'9". Ronald Reagan was President. Michael Jackson was moon-walking to and fro. I had a pair of parachute pants, and I probably wore them with my Air Jordan's and my Starter jacket. Those were the first Air Jordan's, by the way. (The Mars Blackmon kind. Speaking of guys having short homeys....)I even had a shag. Not carpet, but haircut. Well, maybe we had shag carpet at the house too, but that wasn't my fault. Ah, nostalgia....

I can't just sit back and take this from them though. Like any good card-carrying member of the Vertically Enhanced, I have to present valid counter-arguments. It's not all VIP rooms and popularity (but when it is...Oooooh Wheee!). I don't fit anywhere. Cars are too small. Planes are too small. They don't keep trendy clothes in my size. I have to wear all of these nice suits just to keep from wrapping a sheet around me and having to go out into the world surrounded by reasonable men. Julius Caesar was surrounded by reasonable men. Et tu, my five-foot friend. Et tu?

In fact, its downright hard work being this tall and a tireless exercise in cooperative communication and precision. Do you know how much effort it takes to stand up 79 inches above sea level? They probably constructed the pyramids faster than I stand up sometimes. My feet have to send an email on up through my ankles to my knees and have them start to bend. My knees then send a singing telegram on up to my hips telling them to get ready. Although they're quite the disagreeable pair, and can't agree upon anything. The left one likes to cool out and goes Harold Melvin on ya(wake up everybody...) but the right screams James Brown (Get Up out that seat!) so it's not a smooth ascent. My hips and back bring it more up to date. One leans wit it, while the other rocks wit it. My back is mad because my arms ain't pullin' their weight though, just hangin' around. My head scolds the whole lot of 'em as it slams into the overhead compartment, obviously not having received the memo in time that it was time to raise up. Otherwise, it surely would've surveyed the situation and started ringing that bell and shouting "Iceberg! Iceberg!" But I digress. That's what happens when your brain is so high and has to run on auto-pilot waiting all that extra time for the oxygen to reach it. I try to tell them how much it hurts to hit your head on something, but they just say something like "I wish I could hit my head on something...that would be cool!" patrons of profundity that they are.

They don't stop there though. "If I was tall, I'd dunk every time I got the ball. I'd be in the LEAGUE!"

Of course you would, and if you had a rope you'd be a cowboy too, right?

"And all the honeys would be at me and I'd be poppin' my collar...and...and...."

Yes, I know they would. Oh..my bad. I didn't mean to pat you on the head.

And then they snap out of their little day dream get mad at me again, as this reminds them of one of their other key gripes. It might even be the granddaddy of all their gripes.

"She only talked to you because you're tall!"

Maybe she just didn't see you. In those heels, her vantage point goes right over the top of your head. Maybe you moved too fast like a little field mouse and her mere human eyes couldn't keep up...and...and...maybe my super slow-mo gait allowed her to take me all in. Never mind that scowl she gave you, that probably just means she's deep in thought, trying to think of something just as clever to say back to your "Damn! Girl! mmmm! mmmmmmmm! MMMMM! I wanna lick you like a food stamp!"

"She just thinks you play ball..."

So what? She might think you're famous too. I heard she and her girls whispering and they were trying to figure out if you really were that guy they saw on the TV, wearing that helmet and those little boots, sitting on top of that horse that had the roses around its neck.

"I'm gonna tell her that you're NOT that guy and that you just look like him and that you can't even walk and chew gum at the same time."

You do and I'll take my hand out from under this little flap on the back of your little jacket and make you get off my lap. (Let's see you talk then!)

It's not my fault. But that's no reason to get sore at me. While you guys were being good dancers and wearing all the fresh gear back in the day, I was busy being gangly and awkward, pants showing a little more sock than they should've. While you had on your Stacy Adams with your little pin-striped suit on Easter Sunday, I had on some corduroys and blue and white Nikes. It's all good though. I laughed at me too (and no, it was just to keep from crying).

The weather is not any different up here. It's just as cold and lonely up here as it is down there, but the view is a little better.