I Demand My Inches

by Graham Campbell

Last Monday I had a rather mundane visit with my PCP which meant for a change there were no new problems added to my medical chart, no new medications or dosage changes. However, upon my return home and closely reading the written report I became alarmed. Inner bells went off, buzzers sounded, sirens blew, and SOS was sent to the coast guard.

My height was measured at 5’11.” For the previous fifty years of my adult life, I have measured 6’2.” Somewhere in my recent travels, three inches have been stolen from me. I DEMAND THEIR RETURN.

            Immediately I called my physician, Doctor Gerry A. Trick who tried to reassure me of the common and benign nature of this problem. I insisted on a referral to the world-renowned expert in these matters, Doctor Aurthur Ritis, who is so well known that his first appointment is in eight months. I even told him I would fly across the country to San Deago tomorrow if he’d squeeze me in. He still refused. I assured him I was coming anyway with a tent and sleeping bag. For some strange reason he suggested psychiatric care.

My inches will be lost to some thieving international conglomerate before eight months are up.

            In the meantime.

            I demand my inches be returned. Whatever thieving bastard took them has twenty-four hours before I report this to the police. As a lifelong taxpayer in Worcester, I’m sure they will do more than threaten me with psychiatric care when I show up there with my tent and sleeping bag. The 911 operator assured me they would once she ascertained neither I nor my family was in immediate danger.

            You can have my hair. You can have my previously stellar health and my ability to walk without my cane. But you can’t have my height. Here I draw the line. No more surrender.

            Prepared for battle. I have my black ninja uniform on and am armed with my sword with its finely sharpened four-foot blade ready to cut down any thieves I encounter. I only wait for my Lyft driver. And right to the police station we will go. Just because I’m old doesn’t mean I can’t sneak in right under the police security cameras.

            Aging is difficult enough without having to worry about becoming a shrimp. Dr. Gerry assured me this was normal, and the elderly lose as much as an inch and a half a year. At this rate, I’m going to suffer the discrimination of ‘shortism.’ And like all the other shrimps: Picasso, Napoleon, Gandhi, Prince, Houdini, and Aristotle I’ll probably be known by only one name. I’ll end up shorter than Yoda within thirty-seven-and-a-half years. I’ll end up some Jedi’s arm rest.

            My destiny provided in my DNA is 6’2” inches and not a millimeter less. It is my birth right.

            My understanding is that a person’s height is the same as the spread between the fingertips when his arms are fully extended. Have I lost inches here too? That could mean two or even three inches a year. Perhaps, this explains why I am so unsteady on my feet. Perhaps, I have lost inches in only one leg. An undiagnosed imbalance in a department that is supposed to be equal. What if my skull is also shrinking thus compacting all my neurotransmitters? I can’t recall the technical name for this other than shrunken skull disorder.

            Thieves, crooks, and other assorted predators, this is my final warning, I will hunt you down and I am still quite able to bust a few skulls with the cane I always have. No jury of my peers would convict me of the assault. A few old codgers on the panel and I am at least assured a hung jury.

            And don’t try to placate me with talk that it is only compression of the spinal column. If the vertebrae are compressing where is the stuff originally between them? I bet it is molded into tiny packets so it can be smuggled out of the country and sold in some foreign market. These are the new cartels stuffing their ears with my spinal jelly, so it looks like a hearing aid. Rumor has it that smoking it gives the same sort of hit as Ayahuasca.

And just as the AARP is co-sponsoring this year’s Rolling Stones tour, they will sponsor a simultaneous protest march on Washington. Just imagine 300,000 old coots and crones marching down Pennsylvania Ave with Keith Richards as grand marshal. Special guests Willie Nelson and Dolly Parton. The women will carry signs like “Gramma’s for Inches,” “Give Our Men Back Their Inches—everywhere.”  

As a show of good faith, if I can’t get my inches back, I’ll settle for a BIG cut of the profits.        

Bio:
C. Graham Campbell is a seventy-five-year-old retired psychologist and a late blossoming author. He now spends most of his time involved with family, writing, meditating, and exploring what being an elder means. He remains passionate about spiritual development in daily life.