The long and short of things....

So, I was born tiny. Shouldn't have mattered one bit. Only that I was born into a family of tall people, who took a certain pride in their lofty bearings.
Being the favourite 'toss-in-the-air' kid was fun for a while. Then it got boring to whizz in air, and have fragile bones crushed in the tossers' attempts to prevent the tiny one from slipping through big, widespread hands. That is when the wonderful art of barfing presented itself. (Thank you for that, Ms. Guardian Angel.) Screw up face, turn beet red, make a small noise in the back of your throat, and viola, you are on terra firma, and everybody is giving you a wide berth. Happiness!!!
But then, you still remain the small one, who is dawdling while the whole world is moving on its long legs; the perfect size to get a stray knee in the head when the tall one kneels down to pat your oh-so-cute head. Just when you think you are growing up because your clothes are getting shorter than permissible, and feel good, the coconut tree competitors shoot up a little more. Sigh!!!
Constant taunts about the weather down in the shortosphere, the various experiments to prove the converse of "the bigger they are, the better they fall", always being pushed to the front of a crowd to see things better, and thus sometimes landing up in front of elephants and other minuscule objects, wearing extra long, designed-for-mummification kancheevaram sarees resulted in a desperate turn to high heels. Didn't help. It was now easier to prove all variants of the afore said theory of size and falling. Depression!!!
And then came my look-at-the-world-your-way lenses. So what if you are short? You don't have to bend down to walk through any door, except something designed for children. (Sometimes I don't even have to bend for those.) Hold head high, walk in, head intact, doorway intact, smile intact. None of that sudden ducking to avoid a wooden frame, no hair ruffled by various things in the door frame, no sudden stoop, no angry red bulge on the forehead if you forget to duck. Ha.
You also don't have to run the risk of hitting your head on the ceiling when you clamber up stacked up chairs to retrieve some long-forgotten, erstwhile and still largely useless thing. Take a chair, climb up, take thing, go your way; no having to wash off whitewash or, worse still, cobwebs from your hair.
Lack of space, too many people at home? No problem, curl up on a sofa, or in some corner of a bed, make sure no long limbs will disturb your little, curled up hands and legs, sleep well.
Even when you are being lined up for a sound scolding, you can simply stand behind one of those taller people, and not be noticed at all. No severe glare from elder to show you his or (more often) her displeasure; no piece of mind heard for being so big, yet so careless; sometimes, utter disbelief that the little one could have reached that high up to cause so much chaos- like climbing a tree and breaking a branch. Mischief managed. Ha.
All things considered, the weather in Shortosphere is so much pleasanter.