An introduction...

I am a small person. Not shockingly so, like Thumbelina, or to such an extreme that demands attention wherever I go. It does not have a crippling effect on my life as it might on others who are by far smaller than is accommodated for by modern society (though I rarely if ever remove objects from my top shelves or cabinets as that necessitates the use of 12 inch salad tongs to reach them). But a curious fact about being five feet tall is how unusually familiar one becomes with the shape of the underside of the chins of people over 5’9”. I have spent a great deal of conversations with such people merely puzzling over whether there is a name for this particular region of the human head. I would invent a title for it myself, however my thought process never quite makes it to that point before I am reminded by the silence of the nearly-six-feet-tall speaker before me that I am in a conversation and am now expected to respond. These moments nearly always result in a cacophony of guilty and frenzied thoughts trying to settle upon a reply which would not entirely give away the fact that I have not been listening. I honestly do feel guilty for ignoring people solely out of the distraction created by differences in size. You know, it never quite feels right to blame my inattentiveness on my height, but I can think of no better explanation.