They Might Be Giants

Thank God there is a new baby in our family so that when I visit, there's somebody around who's smaller than I am (barely), so I don't get stepped on like a toy. In about six months, even he will tower over me.

I get the occasional (ok, frequent) question about my obsessions with size (the big dogs, the monstrous SUV, the last huge house, the wildly oversized ex-boyfriends), but anyone who sees me with all my cousins immediately gets it. Big is the scale I'm used to, so I think that's what 'normal' people are supposed to look like. We all tend to go with what we know. While my parents are average, I would be on the small side in most any room. Fill up a room with my cousins (on both sides of the family), and I am positively Lilliputian. The view I saw growing up looked out though, not in -- with all of the boys "averaging" a little shy of six and a half feet tall. That's what I saw everyday, so that's what seemed typical to me. It was not unusual for them to just pick me up and carry me everywhere when I was a kid (always over my protests and invariably without my permission, but honestly it's not a bad view... and probably explains a lot).

Last night, my Uncle was asking what my next dog would be. (He was the one who got me my first dog -- a Beagle ....who, not surprisingly, in retrospect, never did turn into the Basset I thought I had asked for.  It was the result of some misunderstanding, where I had showed him a picture of what I thought was a basset, and he brought home two Beagle puppies and let me choose one. I went with the little girl, and spent a solid year quietly waiting for "her ears to grow in." They never did, but I never said anything. For a long time, before I knew what a Beagle was, I thought she was just some sort of mutated Basset.)

"Let's get you .... a dash-hound," my Uncle kidded me last night. I screwed my eyes shut and shook my head violently in obvious disgust. "No? ...Well... how about....a Pomeranian? I know exactly where we can get you a fine Pomeranian." Before I could even laugh, my Mom, taking him seriously said, "Brother, you know how those things jump straight up and down. She would hate that."

He reassured her with serious mock sincerity, "Why, that's all right. We'll just put it in a cage."

Now my mom is a little afraid my housewarming present from The Family is going to be A Caged Pomeranian. (He's a kidder, but he would never take a joke that far.)