tall one

O.K., I'm tall. Not freakishly tall, just on the tallish side. I don't know what ancestor it came from, but when it happened it seemed to happen overnight. It didn't come from my parents. My mom is only 5'2" and my dad is just a little over 6'. I do have a cousin that's 6'7", but everyone else in my family is pretty normal in the height category.
I'm 5'10". Or at least I always thought I was.
In the mid 90's I found myself recently divorced and terminally short on cash. To make ends meet I took a second job bartending and waiting tables at a neighborhood tavern called Moriarty's. The owner was a former St. Louis cop who would pay me cash under the table per shift and let me keep all of my tips. He would hire a band on Friday and Saturday nights and the place got pretty full. I would come home with what seemed like a fortune in tips. I'm sure it wasn't that much, but it was all in one dollar bills and looked massive.
But, I digress . . . .
I was waiting tables one busy Friday night when a guy tapped me on the shoulder and said, "Hey, how tall are you?" I was afraid he probably wanted to know if I'd fit in some bondage contraption he had in his basement, but he handed me a business card for something called the St. Louis Tip Toppers. "It's a club for tall people! You'd love it!", he exclaimed. Meetings were held at a hotel in the Westport area once a month and there happened to be a meeting the very next week. I said that I would think about it.
When next week came around I had that night off and thought, "What the hell - at least I'll meet some people." I didn't really know what to expect.
As I mentioned before, I am on the tallish side. I'm used to looking most people either in the eye or down at the tops of their heads. When I walked in that night I was absolutely the shortest person there. I was stunned - everybody seemed to be at least 6'5". It was like being in a room full of giraffes. They couldn't have been nicer, but my neck was starting to kill me from looking up into their friendly faces.
The meeting was called to order and I took a seat in the front row for fear that I couldn't see over any body's head. By the time they'd read the list of upcoming events and presented a slide show of overwhelmingly Caucasian people participating in healthy family-oriented outdoor activities, I was starting to get the idea that maybe this wasn't my crowd. "I'll sneak out," I thought, "They'll never see me unless they look down." Unfortunately the President of the club chose that moment to invite all prospective members up to the podium. I was the only new face, so everyone pointed and I stood up. "Take off your shoes," said the President. I said, "What?" "Take off your shoes," said the President, "We need to measure you." I climbed up on what looked like a doctor's scale and several giraffes clustered around. One of them said, "Hm . . . 5'9 3/4." "She's not eligible," said another. "Sorry," said the President, "You have to be at least 5'10". Thanks for coming." "No! Wait," I said, "I'm 5'10"! Really!"
They handed me my shoes and I slunk out of there.
In hindsight, I think I was more upset about being 1/4" shorter than I always thought I was than by not being able to join the Tip Toppers club. You see, I always believed in the (Groucho) Marxian rule.
Don't join any club that would have you as a member.