I recognized a neighbour woman at an event I attended on Sunday and went up to her to say hi. Normally, when I chat with her while we walk our dogs, I have to tilt my head down a bit if I want to talk face to face, as she is shorter than I am. This day, there was not much tilting needed and I came to the conclusion that she had grown which I thought odd as she is in her fifties. I then thought maybe she was wearing high heels or boots but that theory fell through as well.
On Tuesday, I took my svelt five-foot, eight-inch frame to the hospital for a bone density scan. The nurse checked my height. Five feet, six and one half inches. I was shocked. I told her I was a steady five eight and had been for decades.
“Well, you must be shrinking,” she replied, with all the bedside manner of Vlad the Impaler.
“Shrinking?” I thought. How the hell does a man shrink? All my identification cards and papers say I am five eight. A $50,000 machine says I am shrinking. Where in hell did the other inch and a half of Jim Hagarty go? This is not news you toss over your shoulder at a man as you are walking away from him.
This reduction seems to have happened since my last bone density scan three years ago. Assuming the machine is not causing this, it appears I am losing a half an inch per year.
If I live another 33 years, to age 100, which I expect to do, I will apparently lose another sixteen and one half inches. This will leave me a diminutive four feet, two inches tall, or short, whatever. We’re getting into Seven Dwarfs territory here. I will be able to go on kiddies rides at fall fairs and my poor neighbour, if she is still speaking to me by then, and assuming she does not also shrink, will have to look way down to have face-to-face chats with me.
If, by some ungodly chance, I live to be 110, I will by then stand only three feet, seven and one-half inches. At 120, not out of the question, I suppose, given the advances being made by medical science, I will be only a little over three feet, two inches. If I live any longer, I will be getting close to two feet something and my wife will be able to push me around in a toddler’s stroller.
And you know, come to think of it, I’m not sure I will mind that one bit.
P.S
By 2091, I will apparently be only one inch tall and will have to hide from my cats.
©2018 Jim Hagarty
