Midgets

PREFACE:
First of all, I have never had a little person tell me they prefer to be called little person rather than midget. I will assume that’s an old wives’ tale. I’ll gladly do it, if that’s what they want. Not because I’m politically correct, because I’m not. But because I don’t usually like being called Nate. I prefer Nathan or one of my many stupid nicknames, like D. Malcolm Tate. Someone who insisted on calling me Nate would be a colossal tool when he knew full well I preferred Nathan. The argument, understandably, doesn’t make the rock hardest of sense, but this is not a place for rock hard arguments. It is a place for opinions soft as bruised pears. And my opinion is that “midget” is a fun word and “little person” is not a word that is as fun. And now for my opinion of midget people.

Midgets. They’re everywhere. Well, maybe not everywhere. They are some places, but not all places. What I mean to say is that it would be a problem if midgets outweighed the taller populace. For real. Everything would get smaller. Like counters at restaurants and the average height of windows. If I was part of a height minority like that, things would not be tailored for me. Right now, everything is built with tall folk in mind and I am comfortable. But if I wasn’t in the majority, I’d probably be in the minority and things would probably be a lot different. Crouching under doorways, sitting on dwarf toilets with my knees level with my hair, trying to manipulate scissors with grips designed for hands more compact than my own, buying clothes in octuple XL, struggling to type on diminished keyboards, purchasing custom size mattresses on the black market because the midgets have illegalized Bigger wares, driving government mandated dune buggy-like vehicles called Scamperers.

It would be pandemonium. Soon, the little people would revolt against the towering freaks that mar their otherwise perfect 3’11” catered world. There is violence in the streets. Since the Smalls outnumber the Bigs ten to one, they easily swarm we giants and giantesses. I certainly can’t stop them. I doubt you can. Not alone. No, not alone. But we are not alone.

And so we band together. It is not a matter of color. Religious prejudices are cast aside. We few, we proud few, join together, surmounting barriers of language and race to stand on the shores of Stubleg Shore as tugboat-sized warships approach. Here, we make our stand. Here, we decide who will inherent this war-torn land. Your grandfathers fell with the first of the rebellion at the Battle of Stuntgrowth City. Your fathers fell in the Manchild Massacre. Today is not the day you fall. Perhaps one day you will meet your end at the tip of one of their cruel gardening spades, but not today. Today is when they fall hilariously because their heads are so close to the ground already and the distance traveled is so short.

Stand tall, comrades, friends, soldiers, brothers! With legs proportionate to our bodies we stand! With arms and hands adequate to our size we hold firm to the belief that all men and all women are created equal, except for our wee oppressors that must stack two on top of one another to look us eye to eye! So it actually takes two of them to equal one of us. Technically, we are all created equal, but some are only fractionally equivalent!

Brothers and sisters, stand! Brothers and sisters, fight! Brothers and sisters, this is the day the Tall will stand against the Small for the liberation and liberty of all the downtrodden!It probably won’t come to that, though. So I don’t have a problem with littler people. Or their Scamperers.

- Amsterdam