An AP article yesterday noted that the U.S. hasn’t been home to the world’s tallest average people since World War II. Germans are now taller than Americans. Young adults in Japan are about as tall as their American counterparts. In Holland, home to the greatest numbers of tallfolk in the world, men average 6 feet in height. Meanwhile American men hover at an average of 5'10".
That makes me taller than average, or just plain “tall,” at 6"0’ when I stand ramrod straight (which I rarely do). According to the article, which didn’t cite its sources, tall people are healthier, wealthier and live longer than shorter people. I don’t know about all of that. Being tall isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.
Sometimes if I’ve been crouching for awhile, say, to better investigate the bargain-bin CD’s on the bottom shelf at Academy Records, when I stand up, the blood pooling in my legs shoots back up to flood my trunk and head and I feel a little dizzy. Or that could just be the mint “Monsters Of Rap” CD I found for $2.99.
Plus there’s the hitting of my head on things. (I can only imagine this one, like most of my gripes, can be a real problem for actual tall people: 6'2", 6'5", what have you.) My favorite is knocking my noggin on the handrails above the seats on the subway that I sometimes forget are there until I rise quickly to exit the car and crack my head.
Another favorite is incompatible shower head height. I vaguely recall a lengthy stay in a hotel room in a country with classically shorter people (France? Mexico?) where the unadjustable shower head was positioned only high enough to hit my upper chest so I had to contort myself to wash my head.
Also, the gangly proportions of tall people can complicate shirt-shopping. I find that in a medium, the sleeves are just right but the chest can be as billowy as a pirate shirt. In a small, the chest is just right but the sleeves are too short. In a nutshell, this is why tailors still have jobs.
Lately I seem to be doing a lot of helping short and/or old ladies heft their 200-pound wheeled suitcase into the overhead bins on airplanes. Sometimes I feel like asking these people, “If you’re only 5’2", why would you carry on a suitcase approximately your size and weight when you know you can’t lift it into the overhead using your T-Rex arms?” Then I realize the answer is, “Because there will always be a gallant sucker such as myself to do it for them.”
Don’t get me started on the legroom aboard said airplanes.
On the plus side for being tall: no Napoleon complex, better views at movies, concerts and sporting events and a presumed ability to dunk.