Monday, March 17, 2008

If anyone's looking for me, I'll be doing yoga in my gravity boots

(Important backstory: The author has been six feet and a half inch tall since he was eighteen years old.)

I've peaked.

Alarmed that I hadn't gone to the doctor in three years or so, I made an appointment with a new one. I got on the scale and she slapped the metal ruler onto my head.

"Five-eleven and a quarter," she told me.

"Wha?" I said. "Surely you mean six feet and a half an inch."

"Stand up as tall and as straight as you can," she said. I did. "Ah, yes, right, you're not five-eleven and a quarter. You're five-eleven and a half."

The doctor tells me that as we AGE, our discs "lose their moisture." Oh, please. That's right out of a Gilbert Gottfried bit he used to do about drying out a pet turtle.

She didn't understand. I had gone from Lumberjack to Regular, from CEO-height to grunt, from Heroic Warrior to Hobbit. Five-foot-wha!? ME? There had to be some other explanation besides the loss of a little disc-water. Finally, I made her give it to me straight. Like most parents, I'm shrinking Because Of The Children.


9 comments:

Suzanne said...

I started out Hobbit and therefor I have really no where to go from here... I've been 5'2" since I was 16. Heaven help me when the discs start losing that precious height-inducing moisture...

Anonymous said...

Yep! It happens...Went from a proud 4 feet eleven and a half to a proud 4 feet ten. Too old for high heels. Just shorten my slacks and walk my head high, daring anyone to snigger. It works! Measured height has nothing at all to do with how tall one becomes with the years...

Magpie said...

Yup - shrinking here too. Glad to know that it's the girl's fault.

Anonymous said...

Same thing happened to me a couple weeks ago. I've always said 6'0" since I was about 18, but while being measured for life insurance, the woman said I was 5'11-and-a-half inches. Stupid dried-out-discs. . . .

Bette said...

So, you are saying it is now medically confirmed that our children sneak into our rooms at night while we sleep and suck the moisture out of our spinal columns?

I KNEW it!

Bill Braine said...

For the record, it's not being short that I fear, it's change.

Okay, fine, it's being short, but only because of the crucial 6-foot vs. less-than-6-foot divide. That's important to a shallow and insecure person like me. You who are less than 6 feet tall, being already tall in spiritual stature because you've never had to lean on that "6-foot" number for your self-worth, do not have this problem.

Bill Braine said...

And yes, BarbaraCA, that's precisely what the science of medicine has shown us.

Bill Braine said...

Oh, sorry, that was fat. Well, trust me. They also drink your spine-juice.

Anonymous said...

Just spine juice? And here I thought they (The Children) sucked the life out of you -- in its entirety, like some science fiction parasites.