I've really enjoyed reading about other people who have 'small stature situations'.. what a good name for them. For the most part I don't let comments or actions of other people bother me. If I am offended by a comment a stranger makes I do my best to make a joke about it (which usually makes the offending person feel more awkward than I did). I'll be honest though, I think that my friends and husband often feel more embarrassed by the comments and actions than I do.

My husband has taken to explaining to co-workers just how small/young I look before they meet me. It gets a lot of the short jokes out of the way before I even have to hear them and they just accept my stature as a normal part of things. To be fair though at 6ft tall my husband receives a fair amount of comments on his age as well (even when not with me). Perhaps everyone just craves youthfulness? His co-workers are 10-30 years his seniors so the affectionately refer to us as the kids. At least we have jokes to share with each other now.


A few of my favorite situations...


* A few weeks ago my husband and I had dinner with our close friends and their baby at a local burger joint. The hostess walked up to seat us, looked at me, and asked if we needed a kid's menu. Without blinking an eye our friend gave the hostess this strange look, and said, "well no, I should think not, he's just a baby".


* When I was in middle school I went out to bunch with my mom. While we were waiting to be seated we were discussing the specials menu. My mom has difficulty reading small or messy print so I've grown accustomed to reading things out loud for her. The host watched for a while and then seated us. (Of course not without me having to turn down the offer of a booster seat... twice!) He took our drink and food order and came back soon with the drinks. When he set the drinks down he looked at my mother, and said "I just wanted to compliment you on your daughter. She's a wonderful reader". My mom broke out in laughter. When the man looked obviously confused my mom stopped laughing and said, "well I sure hope so, she's 12".

Oh god, and this one-

Sometimes when I take my brother out (he's four years younger mind you), people mistake me for his girlfriend.

I was heading to the movies with a friend (girl) during college and a stranger yells out to us, "your daughter has such beautiful hair!"

I don't know which was worse...that I looked like my friend's young daughter, or that my friend looked old enough to be my mom.

Now that my friends and I are having babies, we constantly are discussing how tall/heavy they are. And when their babies (not mine) are about 12-18 months, they are reaching my height/weight from when I was in 2nd grade (8 years old)! I can barely believe it myself.

There's a girl in my 3rd year (university) environmental economics class who sits at the front row. She's TINY! She dresses primarily in what appears to be childrens' wear - Hot pink hoodies with large, glittery graphics and jeans. Am I being a terrible petite by wanting to know how old she is? She has a very young face, but a bust. I wonder if she's a child prodigy, or just looks very young?

If she has the kind of figure you say she does, she's got to be at least in her early to mid teens. Personally, I think that's too old to wear glittery kids' clothes.

She might be wearing clothes like that because grown-up clothes don't fit her.

Agh, I worry that happens when I go out for lunch with my brother, too! He is also about four years younger than me, and we don't look alike.

I'm usually mistaken as his younger sister, as he looks his age and I look like I haven't aged since middle school. I've been asked if my "older brother" needs this or that by a stewardess and several acquaintances have (jokingly) asked my mom, "are you SURE she's the older one?". The kicker--all the people who asked were Asian women (we're generally used to seeing petite people), some of them petite themselves!

My friend took this during an outing for my twentieth birthday:



I didn't get to eat for free (I even ordered alcohol!), but it's still a fun photo nonetheless. It almost looks like it could be an ad or something.

At work, I was asked to crawl underneath a desk to unplug some cables...