The Pole

People expect that I realize how tall I am, but in truth I really don’t. It just hits me like a rock every now and again when I’m standing amongst a group of people. But most of the time, I feel pretty normal, 5’10” maybe.

There are the odd times when it really hits me though- like when I go to church and I’m standing around a bunch of octogenarians, or when I’m at work standing amongst coworkers. But then two seconds later, I’ll go look in the mirror, and I’ll feel- dare I say, short- again.

But this morning in the bus I had to laugh. It’s generally very uncomfortable for me to have to stand in a bus in the mornings, with my laptop back and my portfolio in hand. It doesn’t seem like much load, but when I have one devoted to holding on for dear life, it is a little difficult. The other day, just as I got into the bus (bags in hand), the driver moved off, giving me no chance to hold on to anything. And the within seconds we took the turn by the intersection on Mona Road and Old Hope Road. Needless to say, I lost my footing as the bus turned, fell back onto the closed doors, and damn near pushed the doors open and went tumbling outside. The conductress wasn’t amused… nor was I.

But I digress. Today, I had to stand in a very crowded JUTC bus. Ideally, I would’ve needed to stand directly under the horizontal pole to have my own space. But that was the problem… I was a good 5 or 6 inches over the pole. I looked behind me, and down the whole length of the articulated bus, there was not one other person whose head had conflicts with the pole. Just me. Everyone else was more than comfortable standing directly under the pole. Then one fool had to make my life difficult and sandwich me… right under the pole. So poor me was subjected to ducking under the pole to have space to stand. When that became too much, I had to resort to bobbing and weaving on either side of the pole. Then finally, I came to my stop, and I could extend myself again.

I’m not that tall. Big feet, I have, but my height is never something I considered SO significant. Apparently, the world is biased against tall people, just as it is against people with big feet :-)