The One Wash Policy #TallPeopleProblems

A major problem with being tall is shopping for clothes that fit and look moderately decent on you. After a certain size (usually anything larger than XL, depending on the brand), shirts start looking more and more reminiscent of a square and less and less human-shaped. While this may not be a problem if you’re a sponge and live in a pineapple under the sea, all the humanoids out there are stuck garbed in shirts that make them look scarily similar to a bell. To make matters worse, once you’ve invested in a square shirt, you can only ever wear it once. The reason being for this is what I have dubbed the “One Wash Policy.”

Only this guy can pull off a square wardrobe.

It works like this:

First comes the purchase. The shirt you bought is already on the brink of being too short to wear, but long enough to cover the dreaded plumber’s crack. It’s not a tailored fit, but it’s acceptable. 

The second step to this policy is the first day that shirt gets worn. Nothing too exciting happens here; you go out, look fabulous, then head back home and toss the shirt into the hamper. 

Next is the wash. It’s laundry day, the most frightening day of the year (shower day being a close second), and all your clothes get stuffed into the wash. Absentmindedly, you select “normal cycle” on the machine, not realizing that the normal cycle’s default settings make use of hot water. 

To make matters worse, the clothes are then transferred directly from the washer to the dryer, where it goes through another 35 minutes of terror. 

The final step is the tragic realization of what has just occurred. As you remove the shirts from the dryer and start to fold them, you notice a change in shape. Much like the Grinch’s heart, the shirts came out two sizes too small. What was once a poorly fitting t-shirt has been transformed into a poorly fitting belly-shirt. 

That, my readers, is the dreaded One Wash Policy – a crime against all things cotton. 

Something I’ve always been curious about is whether or not shorter people have this same problem. This one goes out to everybody: how many shirts have you shrunk beyond recovery, and what do you do to prevent it? 

I can't buy a sports car. #TallPeopleProblems

It’s true; I can’t buy a sports car. I’m too poor. Unfortunately, waiting tables doesn’t fund any of my expensive needs in life, like a V-12 cherry-red Enzo Ferrari. Oh, and there’s the not-so-small problem of not being able to fit in one.

My dream of roaring around town in a sports car so sexy it gives pedestrians whiplash was recently crushed. I went to a car show this past year and realized something I should’ve expected: sports cars are simply too small for someone my size to fit in. I’m actually pretty sure they’re too small for anyone to fit in.

I feel your pain Mr. Incredible.

My first experience with this depressing phenomenon occurred at the hands of a BMW Z4. I figured sure, it’s a small car, but it makes up for it by being an open-cabin vehicle – I can fit in that. When I finally squeezed myself behind the wheel after pulling out some contortionist tricks I had learned from my long circus career, I learned that my view was perfect…ly blocked by the top of the front windshield. It was as if some supreme power felt the need to censor my eyes from the public. The horrors didn’t stop there either; virtually every car I attempted to sit in was too small. 

I’m aware that I may not be the best judge of appropriate cabin size for a car – being 6’ 6” doesn’t quite make me the average consumer. Some of you may even be thinking, “Well, you’re probably doing it wrong.” Rest assured, I tried moving the seat as far back, down, reclined and down again as much as I could in the vehicle, but like Apple Maps, it got me nowhere. Alas, it was only the Ford F-150 that had enough space to fit all of me comfortably… and I was riding in the truck bed. 

My actions aren't my own. #TallPeopleProblems

Let’s focus on mini-golf for a minute. I feel like I can speak for almost all the tall people of the world when I say that it’s got to be the absolute worst activity ever invented. As Admiral Akbar would say, “It’s a trap!” As soon as I walk onto the course, I feel like Godzilla; buildings just start randomly falling over, bridges are tripping me up and the workers are telling me to “stop roaring.” The entire experience makes me wonder if so-called antagonists such as Godzilla and King Kong were really just misunderstood.

"Play with me!"  

Think about it, Godzilla was just a giant lizard, King Kong was just a really big gorilla and I’m just a tall human. The only difference is that they’ve gotten movies made about their accidents and I typically have to pay for the damages.

Usually when an individual is tall, their extremities are proportionate: they’ve got large hands, large feet and typically a larger head. While this isn’t bad in every scenario, the hands and feet can be rather cumbersome at times and the head makes for a decent sized target for inanimate objects (see Mar. 3, 2013).

Take King Kong’s unfortunate predicament for example: there he was just exercising his right to climb buildings when planes start shooting at him. He waves at them, obviously signaling his peaceful intentions, when quite on accident he hits a couple of planes out of the sky… Talk about epitomizing the clumsiness of big hands.

Now, I’m not saying that I’m King Kong, but my impressive wingspan has been known to knock over the occasional passer-byer. Similar to Mr. Kong (as I’m sure he’s referred to in his jungle) my intent is always pure and never malicious, it just so happens that my arms extend further than people usually expect. Needless to say, this is a problem that’s not easily remedied and that usually has me stumbling to spill out an apology before the victims have time to call in the air force.

Look at that face. He just wants to be loved.

Okay everybody, you know what time it is! I want to hear about incidents where you’ve on accidently injured someone or been injured by someone! Let it all out!... but do so in a polite, G-rated manner! 

  

"You're going to try to squeeze me in that?" #TallPeopleProblems

I visit the hospital more often than the average person. I like the scenery. Seriously though, if I could get frequent flyer miles from hospital stays, surgeries and stiches, I’d have enough miles to take me to the moon and back. Twice.

The reason this morbid subject is on the operating table this week is because I was recently reminded how difficult it is for someone like me to go through medical examinations by my most recent MRI.

For those of you who are not familiar with an MRI machine, it looks like this, only louder.

Pictured above is an MRI machine. For the record, this is one of the loudest things on the planet, right up there next to a blue whale's sneeze and dropping the shampoo bottle in the shower. That little hole in the center is about 24 inches in diameter. I happen to be exactly 25 inches across from shoulder to shoulder. Awesome. This means I am literally squeezed into the tube, my whole body vibrating because my shoulders are up against the inside of the machine while the giant coils pulsate to create a magnetic field. In the midst of all this, I inevitably hear the operator say, “Try to stop moving.” To which I always have to reply, “I’ll stop moving as soon as the machine does.”

The humiliation doesn’t stop at MRIs. A couple months back, I had to get a chest x-ray. Only one problem: the x-ray couldn’t take a picture of my entire chest in one shot. Oh boy. For each angle that my doc needed, the technician had to take two x-rays, one of the upper half of my chest and one of the lower. I don’t know if you’re keeping track, but that’s twice the amount of radiation from x-rays that we tall people are exposed to.

It’s not always the complicated pieces of equipment that causes problems either. I have to tell the nurses my own height because I’m too tall for the detecto standing scale with height rod. Apparently, when the “height rod” reaches 78 inches, its natural tendency is to sort of… fall off. Needless to say, they don’t let me on that ride anymore.

If you’ve ever wished you were taller, and happen to have a bunch of medical issues, you can take solace in knowing that being short is beneficial at the hospital. If you’re tall and in the hospital all the time… Well, all I can say is that I hope you’re a doctor and not a patient. Don’t fret too much about it though; you’re not alone. Instead, slap a smile on your face, and use the comment box as an outlet for all your frustrations! I look forward to hearing them!