Men

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I was short for awhile. I'm not anymore, or course, but I was
short for awhile.

I remember all the way back in the first grade how great it was
to have it as my trademark. I was a master of hide-n-seek.
Being able to run fast and crawl into the tiniest cubbyhole I
was always the last to be found. And I was always told how cute
I was. First grade didn't last long though.

As time passed and everyone else grew I was stuck in a rut of
being cute and very short. This created in me a concept of
equality between being tall and dominion. Being the power
hungry juvenile that I was, I decided to grow. Immediately I
set about in my plan to be a normal, tall, dominating person.
Every morning at 6:00am I was up doing push-ups, chin-ups,
sit-ups, and pushing down bananas, raisins, plus every vitamin
in the alphabet. All day I would sit up straight and stand next
to people a few grades behind me so that I would get used to
being tall when the time did arrive. At night I'd lean against
a wall and do a head-stand so that more blood would get to the
top. Then, for at least a half hour, I'd hang on the chin-up
bar and let myself stretch out. I was constantly drinking milk
and eating every pea and brusslesprout I could find.

It didn't work. After a year of hard, dedicated labor I
realized that spinach wouldn't change the chromosome makeup in
each of my short cells. Thus, depression set in. I went from
being a short, overseeing, demanding twerp to being a short
underbred whooped puppy.

Again everyone was growing and growing and leaving me farther
and farther behind. Struggling desperately to stay in league
with the guys, I joined the wrestling team. I was the only one
in the 70 lb. weight class, which gave me a perfect record. I
went to the state finals and got the crap beat out of me. Again
I was defeated. My self image took a perfect 89 1/4 degree dive
(Somehow I hung onto 3/4 of a degree with my name.) I started
staying up late and sleeping in. Occasionally I wouldn't take a
shower just for a few more minutes sleep. I ate whenever and
whatever I felt like; the vitamins my Mom gave me to take were
either thrown out the window behind her back or pocketed and
given to the squirrels I met on the way to school. Everything
went down: my weight, grades, personality, social life and my
health.

What the exact day was I'll probably never know, but I realized
again that what I was doing just wasn't doing any good.

They say the third time's a charm and for me it was quite true.
My third step was a step forward. After I took a step, I stood
and became myself. I started being me and not society. Society
calls it growing up.

Since that time I've dedicated myself to the expansion of the
brain and not the bicep. Never again will I be a Lilliputian
mentally. When I was a child I spoke as a child, I understood
as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man I put
away childish things. I was short for awhile. I'm not anymore,
or course, but I was short for awhile.

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