Don’t Listen To Me

Stanley and Livingstone (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I was telling the Hub about Dianne’s comment yesterday that she had thought he was over six foot tall from the way I write about him.  We had a good chuckle because he is 5’6″.

I am 5’2″ and not happy about it, as I told you three years ago.  I used to be 5′ until the Hub measured Spud’s height one day.  At that time he was 5′ which was weird, because he was shorter than me.

I have always been 5′ tall (since I reached 5′, anyway) and rather like it. Think of Kylie Minogue and you get the idea of how dainty I am. Or was, twenty-eight years ago. Now I’m 5′ wide as well: a sort of Kylie-squared.

Shocked (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Only, I am not 5′ small after all, despite what it says in my passport. The tape measure proved it: I am 5’2″. No more standing on the third step up to the back garden that backed onto my childhood back garden to kiss 6′ tall boyfriends for me (though the Hub might have something to say about that, anyway; so perhaps it’s just as well).

My problem was that I had always believed myself to be a certain height and then I discovered that was not so.  I was anxious that the Police might take me away in the night and electrocute my testicles with passion fruit (sorry if that doesn’t make sense; I had a sleepless night worrying about it) for making a false declaration on my passport.

Imagine if you were a girl and you had always been a girl and it says on your passport that you’re a girl and then somebody measures you against your child one day – a child that you lovingly carried, birthed, reared and gained weight for, the miserable little turncoat – and they tell you that, oops, it’s a mistake and you are actually a boy. I think you’d be as hysterical as I was, wouldn’t you? My image of myself as diminutive was irrevocably altered – I can no longer ask strangers in the supermarket to pass me the tofu* on the top shelf or get Tory Boy to dust the parts my little arms cannot reach; they’ll just laugh and tell me to ‘Get it yourself, Lofty.’

*If it’s true that I am tall then it’s true that I am a healthy eater as well.

The Hub obviously didn’t think things through when he told me the alleged truth about myself.  He likes dainty women, which is why he roughed me up and bundled me into a wedding carriage all those years ago. He was six inches taller than me then: tall enough to make me feel protected but not so tall that I needed to wear a neck brace after canoodling with him. We had to re-think our whole relationship once I became a giant.

Colorized title card from Dopey Dicks. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

He tried to soothe my understandable fury by blaming my Dad – who would have been the one to measure me for my passport – for making a mistake. This did calm me down because my Dad was a bit dopey (where do you think I get it from?) and it is a plausible theory. BUT – and it’s a big but, as you can see – I remembered that my Dad didn’t measure me for my passport because he was in South Africa at the time; I was still in the UK.

That made me doubly angry at the Hub – he shattered my self-esteem and besmirched the good name of the best Dad who ever lived at the same time. That’s a good enough excuse to throw food at him, I think. Excuse me a moment…

…that feels better.

Spud said I should look on the bright side: I am no longer an official midget.  I should be grateful for small mercies.

But I digress.  I mentioned the context (boasting about his exploits in Africa) to the Hub of his mythical size.  It appears I got some facts wrong:

• The source of the Nile and where Stanley and Livingstone met are not the same place.  The source of the Nile is in Uganda.  However, the Hub did make sure to get there.  I got my stories and my African countries confused.
  

  Description unavailable (Photo credit: rosshuggett)

• The Stanley/Livingstone spot marked by the rock is in Burundi but the Hub didn’t swim in a crocodile-infested river.  However, he did paddle in it.  I got my water levels confused.
• The Hub did not force me to marry him.  However, I’m not sure I believe that one.  He has me all confused.  

Amazingly, not one of my readers picked me up on the first error.  You are either a wonderfully uncritical audience or as bad at history and geography as I am.  I prefer to believe it’s the former.  Thank you.  

To conclude, a word of advice: I don’t listen to the Hub; don’t you listen to me.  I don’t know my Africa from my apogee.