Living a heightened life.
Life is short. At least, that’s what most product manufacturers think. From clothes, to cars, to the very homes we live in, personal vertical progression past the six foot mark becomes essentially perilous. And its getting worse.
It used to be that what I call “heightened” people could compensate for flood pants by wearing boots and just outright avoid long sleeved shirts. Nowadays finding something that even comes close to fitting is like winning the lottery. Twice. I have come to the indisputable conclusion that there exists a person or people who, for whatever reason, harbor a great disdain for heightened people and somehow managed to gain control of the entire clothing industry. How else to you explain “tall” sized pants that only extend the length from the waist to the crotch? What about the reasoning behind clothing assembled on the assumption that an increase in height equals an increase in waist size? You can’t point to manufacturing costs to explain these blatant offenses. The conspiracy minded might think that this is all an effort to more readily identify the heightened for extermination once population restrictions are in place. (Larger people go first, as they are bigger drains on resources.) Tall people can slouch to hide their advantage, but they can’t hide billowy shirts and a waist line cinched up around their ribs.
Car manufacturers aren’t much better. There is no back seat suitable to those with reasonably proportioned extremities. Finding a vehicle with enough leg room to drive isn’t a win, because then you’re sitting so far back that you have to hunch forward and attempt to swivel your head 180 degrees to see when the traffic light above you changes. And no, sun roofs and convertibles don’t fix the problem when the top of your head is pressed against hot glass or your eye level is in direct alignment with the top of the windshield frame. When the rear view mirror blocks your view out of the windshield, you know there’s a problem.
If you haven’t guessed yet, I am one of the heightened. That makes me part of the 14.5 percent of people over six feet in the United States with forehead scars from ceiling fans. And not enough is being done about it. Michigan is currently the only state that prohibits height discrimination, but that only applies to the work force. We can do better. That’s why when I come into power the following changes will be made:
1 - All clothing manufacturers will be required to take a training course on the use of a tape measure and the difference between human beings and mannequins.
2 - Minimum required ceiling height in all buildings will be raised from 7 feet to 9 feet to compensate for hazardous light fixtures. Additionally, all doors and entryways will have a minimum height of 7 feet.
3 - All vehicle manufacturers will be required to have separate models with the “TL” designation for all products that will accommodate heightened people.
4 - All forms of public transportation will provide seating appropriate for people of better than average height and width. (Because I fight for both the big AND the tall!)
5 - Bed manufacturers create a new size, Emperor, that will be no shorter than 7 feet.
6 - All shower heads will be mounted no lower than 7 feet, and all bath tubs will be made in longer sizes. (And since we’re in the bathroom, all mirrors and stall dividers must reach ceiling height.)
7 - The tips of open umbrellas will be blunted to prevent eye injury and puncture wounds to the neck.
8 - All chiropractors will provide a discount of their services to the vertically enhanced as a matter of gratitude for keeping them in business until such time as all other requirements on this list are met.
This list could go on forever, but I will start with these in the interest of basic human dignity and safety equality for heightened people. There are plenty of other things that will have to be changed as well that have nothing to do with being tall, like plastic grocery bags with the tensile strength of wet tissue, but that is an ever expanding list that I don’t have time to enumerate here because I’m busy coming into power. It might take a while, chiropractor appointments are not known for their brevity.
