UNDER THE MICROSCOPE

NEW SPECIMENS OLD SPECIMENS THE SCIENTIST MY LOG CONTACT ME
2003-06-13 - 6:00 p.m.

THE SMALL STUFF

�Don�t sweat the small stuff,� someone said. �And the secret is that it�s all small stuff.� In the broader perspective, that sentiment makes some sense. Perhaps one should not sweat the small stuff. But when one is a small person, sometimes paying attention to the small stuff is wise.

I am petite and tend to look younger than my age. While both of those attributes (and they are linked attributes) are advantages now, they once were disadvantages at times. After I graduated college, I taught school. Most of the other teachers were considerably older than me and I knew that establishing credibility with the parents might be a bit difficult. (Establishing credibility with younger children was unlikely to be a problem because kindergartners, for example, consider anyone over fifteen years old or so to be incredibly old.) While the other teachers wore slacks, I never did. They could afford to dress more casually. I needed every ounce of authority that low heels, pantihose, skirts, and makeup could give me.

So I understood Day-Hay�s problem with the t-shirt that is part of her uniform as a counselor-in-training (CIT) at the local Y�s day camp. Day-Hay, petite Day-Hay, still wears a child medium and, occasionally, a child�s large t-shirt. Staff uniforms come in adult sizes only. The adult small is a bit wide but, more obviously, it is long�very long. It came down near her knees. When she was wearing long pants, it looked oversized. If she wore shorts underneath, no one would know. The t-shirt was like a nightgown on her.

Mr. Philately thought it was cute. I am not sure if he understood that it was impossibly cute. It was so cute, and made her look so much like a little girl trying on her counselor�s (or her mother�s) shirt, that wearing it as is was not really an option. As the smallest (although not the youngest) CIT, she will need all the authority she can muster�with the campers, with the counselors, and with the parents if she ever helps work the pick-up table. She needed someone to do radical surgery on that shirt. She needed me to remove more than 16 centimeters from the bottom.

So today I shortened two t-shirts. The task was made easier by the surger that my parents gave me. I could surge the edges so they would not unravel before sewing the hem all the way around. Now the shirt, while still a bit wide, fits in length. But no one will think about the width as they would have thought of the length. Now she looks like a CIT�and not like she�s just playing one in the kindergarten housekeeping corner.

Because Day-Hay understands how important that shirt was, I was rewarded for my efforts. She thanked me, true, but she also looked me straight in the eye and hugged me. She can do that now because we are almost the same height. And in that moment we each knew that the other understood. Sometimes the small stuff is important�particularly if you are small stuff yourself.

LAST YEAR: Green Beans

TWO YEARS AGO: Siren Call

The Dump
Dreaming of Recall
Real Men
Cutting Past the Bone
Never the Twin Shall Meet
Not Being There

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