On Being a Short Girl in a Big Man’s World Lia Hoang I’m not small! The world is just too big! That’s what I heard on a podcast the other day, and now I try to live by that as much as I can. I’ve gotten used to my “five feet and half an inch” status by now. What’s annoying is that I haven’t grown that other one and a half inch to make myself “five foot two”, which is my dream height. I know that for most people, “five foot two” is a sad goal to have when the goal is typically “five foot five” to “five foot seven” for a girl. But when your dad is “five foot one and three quarters” and your brother has surpassed that height by a lot, your desired height is “five foot two”. In second grade, I was the shortest person in my class. Not just out of the girls, but out of everyone. Everyone could jump up to touch the top of the door, and I couldn’t. At the time, it was a big deal if you could and everyone would think that you were so cool and awesome. Good thing I occasionally can today! But later that second grade year, my parents told my brother and I that the four of us were going to the Bahamas that July. We were going to stay at the resort, Atlantis, which was very popular back then. When I looked up what it had to offer on my dad’s computer, I saw that there were two slides that went through a massive shark tank. It sounded awesome. But then, thoughts started stirring up in my head like a tornado. Will I be tall enough for any of the slides? Would I be able to do anything at all? Anxiousness kicked in a little bit, but I guess you never know until you try. Three hours and ten minutes later sometime in July of 2012, the Hoang family arrived in Nassau, Bahamas. When I looked up at the palm trees, my neck would hurt a little bit, so I decided to take in a great view of the tall brown stalks instead. But once I moved away from the brown stalks, I saw that paradise was right in front of me. If my dad is in the Bahamas on vacation away from work, he wants to get the full experience, which includes me being able to go on all of the slides at the resort. My parents jokingly made me go to each measuring stick that was in front of every ride. The height requirement for each ride was 48 inches, and honestly, I wasn’t sure if I was going to meet that height. My dad looked at the stick very closely, and he said that I was 48 inches. A feeling of relief settled in, but that didn’t last very long. The next day, my mom and I were in line to go on one of the slides that goes through the shark tank since I knew that I was tall enough to ride it. The wait was so long and boring, but that didn’t matter to me. The guy, I’ll call him Steve since Steve sounds like a nice guy name, motioned me to walk towards him so that he could give me a tube to go down the slide. Please say I’m tall enough. Just please don’t say no. He didn’t. The twists and turns and the sudden drop to the part where you float through the shark tank made waiting in that awful line worth it. I kept thinking that the sharks were going to break through the slide and grab me with their teeth, but that was what was thrilling about it. I felt like I was accepted into this big man society. I don’t know why
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