Short people

 Hi there.  

I hate being short in height.  Before last week, I had not had my height measured since I was at secondary school where I was (imperial measurement) five feet two and a half inches tall.

From that time I've always told people I was five feet two and a half inches.  In the 1960s when we had to put our height on a passport application, I wrote 'five feet two and a half inches'.  We also had to put our eye colour.  I remember asking the man behind the application counter to look into my eyes -

"What colour are they?" I asked him.

"Um ...  Green?"

"That'll do..."

If I was ever to be in a future fatal plane accident and if by that time I had gained or lost an inch or two of height, and my eyes were officially down as being green, rather than the hazel that my friends told me they truly were, then my body would never have been identified.  Hooray for DNA nowadays...

But I digress ... 

Just recently I was reading a piece about how people grew shorter as they grew older.  Apparently, by the time we reach the age of 80, women will have lost 3 inches and men have lost 2.

Well, I was at the eye clinic at Wellington hospital last week and I asked a nurse if she would measure my height.

I was a smidgin under five feet.

Whaaaat????

So.... its true then?  About getting shorter as you get older?  Who'd-a-thought?

This is why I get so anxious before I go to a live show.  I always-repeat-always end up with the tallest person in the theatre sitting in front of me.  His kids will sit either side of him and his tiny wife a couple of seats away is happily watching from behind another short person.

I was telling the ticket box lady about this dilemma once.  I don't think she believed me because she asked me to show her the following night when I found my seat in the theatre.

At interval, I scooted into the foyer to locate her -

"There!!"  I pointed in triumph to the guy in front of my seat.

"Oh, he is tall," said the ticket box lady.  And she beetled off to help sell the ice creams and no doubt forget about me....

above: Wellington Opera House where many live shows are staged.

*****

Shortest day, whoopee!