The future's bright... and small

I have alluded in previous posts to how my life is over-run with small things. It really is. I live with short people. On the Midget-Human-Giant spectrum, Stray is marginally taller than a legal midget (and thus a super-midget, verging on the sub-human). Badger is short for a human but rather tall for a badger, lying in the sub-human to human zone. (I suppose there is a clue in the species...) I am most certainly not short - nudging on 6ft, give or take, depending on how long it's been since I got out of bed, and the height of my heels. I fall somewhere between super-human and sub-giant territory.

I like being tall. I like the fact that, more often than not, my nostrils are well clear of other people's armpits on packed tubes and trains. This is usually a good thing, except when I find myself 'facing' under-heighted men whose heads are closer to my chest than the normal rules of decorum would allow. I also like the fact that the grey hairs which are beginning to sprout on the top of my head are out of sight of most other people.

I've observed aspects of being short which are less than ideal. Stray can barely reach the pedals in her car. This strikes me as A Thing Which Is Not Good.

I am tall enough to be able to reach a clothes lines strung high enough to hang bedlinen from without it engaging with passing dogs without having to jump and catch the line at full stretch.

I might be tempted to feel slightly superior, but I am instead rather jealous of my semi-pint housemates (see, I have to insult them at every opportunity to get over the sense of inadequacy caused my unnecessary height, mass and volume.)

Here's why:

• They buy children's clothes and pay no VAT;
  
• The loss of human functionality incurred on shrinking a human appears to be extremely nonlinear in favour of the midgets;
  
• They fit in a normal size bed without feet hanging out the end or head crushed against the headboard;
  
• They can live in tiny spaces and not get claustrophobic;
  
• They can't see the dust on top of the fridge;
  
• They can walk through the 'garden' without danger of being decapitated by low-hanging vines and other vegetation of horizontally-orientated growth;
  
• They can walk on the roof without fear of it collapsing;
  
• They have oodles of leg room on even the most cramped of commuter trains;
  
• They weigh less, consume less fuel to transport, and require less food to sustain, being inherently more ecologically sustainable;
  
• They are less likely to damage extraneous limbs or graze knuckles when climbing up stairs;
  
• They have less far to fall;
  
• They look sort of sweet, in the way that the next iteration of unfeasibly small laptops and mobiles look sweet.

Damn them...

On the other hand:

• I do not have to perform minor athletic miracles every time I hang out my washing;
  
• I can fully utilise top shelves;
  
• My arms are sufficiently long to be able to put duvet covers on duvets unaided;
  
• I can usually reach the loo roll, regardless of the ingenuity of the last visitor to the facility in replacing it after use;
  
• I can see over the counter at the chippy;
  
• And over the dashboard of my car;
  
• People do not feel the need to tell me when they have encountered someone shorter than me.

On balance, though, I think the short people have it. They're certainly better for the planet. Perhaps a selective breeding programme should be established in the interests of a sustainable future...