So this is the story of the day I got short…the names have been changed to protect the innocent: Me.
I don’t know why I’m writing it out…because once it happened; it was like I had always been short. Like nobody noticed that my world turned upside down one day. I mean, it’s weird enough to shrink 14 inches one day when you’re 22 years old, but to not have anyone notice that just means that whatever happened, affected everyone else too. As soon as it happened, everyone treated me like I had always been short, no one remembered me as the tallest one in the family, the tallest of my friends, the former high school volleyball and basketball player. I even said to my younger sister “Don’t you remember when I was 6’1”?” She got the strangest look on her face, scrunched up her nose at me and said really snotty “You? In your dreams ‘little’ sis” I didn’t know what to say…if I bring it up, people think I’m absolutely crazy. I mentioned it to my friend Julie and she just looked at me really concerned and asked “What are you talking about?” So maybe that’s why I’m writing it out…maybe I am crazy or maybe I’m just so mad about everything being different now and nobody remembers.
I had always been tall. I was always in the back row of every class picture. Always the first picked for basketball, but the last picked for middle school dances. It was high school before any boy got taller than me. I put up with nicknames like Jolly Green Giant, Amazon woman and Gigantor.  Of my friends, I was always the one doing the awkward knee bend just to get my head in the picture, same with my family. I used to tease my younger sister; she’s 5’7”. She would complain about how she was too tall for something and I’d be all “Please…5’7” is Not Tall…you don’t know what tall is” all while looking down at her. Yesterday; she used my head as an armrest. She calls me shorty and “little sister” now. I’m 5 years older than her, but now, I’m eight inches shorter than her. I don’t quite come up to her chin after being 6 inches taller than her before this. So Frustrating.
It’s been a week since I shrunk. I’m not used to it yet and maybe I never will be. I mean I can’t even explain it. Maybe this is what it’s like when you’re a man who thinks they should be a woman. You feel like you’re in the wrong body. I mean, I’m a tall girl in a short body now. It’s that I know how to be a tall girl. I don’t know how to be short. Short girl problems are new to me and totally unexplainable. I mean, how can I not reach things on the top shelf without climbing on the counter. My sister hides food from me on the top of the fridge…and the worst part is, I have to drag a chair over to get it. All my clothes have gone from being too short on me to too long on me. That’s the other weird thing…I mean when I changed, everything changed. All my clothes in my room were suddenly XS instead of XL and pants were now short instead of long and my shoes are all now size 5 or 5 ½ instead of 13. And all of those flats that I owned are now heels; I mean I don’t know how to even walk in platform heels and suddenly I own 5 pairs of platform heels. I owned one, exactly one pair of heels that I never wore, never needed to; but I’ve been practicing walking in them now; I’ll admit to it fully. I’ll get into all the weird shit that happened when the universe decided to play a joke on me soon enough, but,  I have clothes from the children’s department now…one of my coats has a tag that says girls size 16…and it’s big on me.
Maybe I should just get to the details before I just rant anymore. But my rant will come through as I go through that morning, I mean just one more thing…I don’t even look or sound the same anymore. I look similar, but being so much smaller changed my face as well as my body. And don’t get me started on my voice…uh, it went from a real voice to this high pitched thing that doesn’t sound like me at all…I sound like a kid. Anyway…
It was a Saturday morning. My Mom and sister had already left…she had a soccer game that morning that I wasn’t going to. She’s a senior in high school and I’m finishing up my last semester of college but still living at home. I was getting dressed; I had put on a blue shirt, with my ever present white undershirt to prevent the tall girl problem of showing off my stomach when my shirt pulled up. I put on a pair of jeans that usually came up a little high on my ankles. I say usually because on this morning, they hit the top of my feet. I didn’t think too much of it at the time but went about fixing my hair. I pulled it up into a bun on the top of my head. That was when I noticed that my sleeve was down on the palm of my hand. I pulled the shirt at my shoulder and stepped towards the mirror. I grabbed my phone to check it and then I stepped on my pant leg. I had never stepped on the hem of my jeans before that second. It would not be the last time.
I looked down and could not believe what I saw.  My jeans were covering my feet…they were sooooo long all of a sudden. My chin had to be on my chest my mouth was so wide open. I tried to make a sound but nothing came out of my mouth.

I threw my phone onto my bed and I put my hands up to my cheeks, I started chanting “Oh my God” over and over. The next time I looked down, I didn’t even see my toes.
I could feel my pants slipping off my waist too. I grabbed them when I felt them let go, but by that time my shirt sleeve was covering my fingers. I held onto the pants for a second in this wad of fabric in my hand, but when I shifted my weight, I lost my grip and they dropped to the floor.
I screamed then. I know I did. It was just a long scream that I could hear getting higher and higher in pitch the longer I screamed. When I finally ran out of breath, I could feel the tears stinging my eyes and running down my cheeks. I tried to take a step backwards, but my feet tangled in the jean pool on the floor and I fell backwards, landing flat on my ass.
I scrambled to get back up, free of the pants, I felt my white undershirt brush my thighs, my shirts were dress size on me now. My shirt slipped off my right shoulder. I screamed again as I looked down and saw the gap between my boobs and my bra cups. Swimming in my clothes, I grabbed the bottom and yanked my shirts off over my head; my bra came off too; with no resistance. I dropped the clothes to the floor and stared at the reflection in the mirror. I screamed again; too loud and too long and too high.
I remember thinking “That’s not me…that can’t be me…that’s not me…I don’t look like that.” I mean this little girl staring back at me was not me. The reflection showed me my new self though.
So I just stared for like three minutes straight. I finally stopped screaming, but I couldn’t stop crying. I remember saying out loud “Okay Taylor…pull your shit together” but then thinking “That’s not my voice…it’s too high.” My hair was still pulled up in a bun on top of my head but my face looked different. My eyes were still brown but so much smaller and narrow. I saw my scar that rests over my right eyebrow from when I fell off my bike when I was 9. My nose still had the small piercing in it, but my nose was now so small, same shape with the slight upturn at the end, but smaller. My lips looked the same, but once again, smaller and narrower, shit, even my teeth were smaller. My face size had changed, my features, I guess and see now, fit my face and size as it was. But I didn’t see it that way at that moment.
So, at this point, you tell me: How would you react if you suddenly shrunk from 6’1” to 4’11”? Screaming crying and shock was how I did it. I don’t know about you.
“I…I’m dreaming” I said quickly. I started talking way too fast “I have to be dreaming. There…I mean…there’s just no way that this shit just happens and shit why does my voice sound different?”
I started to pace back and forth, my little feet taking me back and forth, with just my very loose panties on my tiny waist now. “Fuck” I yelled and jumped up and down a few times. Well that was all it took for those panties to give up the last of their hope and fall to the floor. I bent down and picked them up, balled them up and threw them at the mirror. “Fuck Me” I screamed. Dream, Hallucination, I had no idea what was going on. “This is impossible” I simply said at last.
I sat down on the corner of my bed; dejected. I immediately became aware of the fact that my feet lifted off the floor when I sat down. I looked over and saw them dangling several inches above my carpet.
“What the fuck…” I mumbled looking down at my feet. They were so small, dainty even. My feet had always been so big, called gunboats by most others, but now; in a word, tiny.
My eyes scanned up my legs “My legs are so short, so…small” My knobby knees were gone; my thunder thighs were gone. I ran my hands over my thighs “So small I repeated.
I stood back up and looked in the mirror again. My hips were narrower and I turned to the side and saw just how small my ass was now “Oh my God” I said with one hand running over it and the other to my mouth.
“My Boobs” I said sadly. They were never big…but now…they were practically non-existent.  My hands went to them and ran over them quickly. Being smaller made my nipples look larger, but that was the only thing that looked larger on my body now.
I put my hands out, they were so tiny, and it didn’t look like I could grip anything with those hands. I bent over and tried to pick up a basketball that was on the floor; my fingers just slid over the surface, the ball barely lifted before quickly dropping again.
I walked out of my room, and what had taken me ten steps to get into my mother’s bathroom now took at least thirty, but that’s beside the point. The point was that I couldn't see my lips in the mirror; they were cut off unless I stood on my tip toes.


Wow. Just wow.
I screamed again and ran back to my room.
It was once that I got back into my room that everything really went to shit in my head. I stood in my room and after punching myself in the head several times yelling “Think” at myself. I noticed the picture on my book shelf.
On the third shelf, there’s a picture of me and my best friend Julie. Julie and I have been friends since the 2nd grade. This is a picture of us at our High School graduation 4 years ago. Now Julie goes about 5’4” so in this particular picture she came up to my shoulder: but not anymore. I stared at the picture; in this picture from four years ago, I am shorter than my best friend. “What the fuck is going on here” I yelled as I picked up the picture. I dropped it on my bed and grabbed another picture “Oh No” I said “No fucking way” I said even louder and sterner as I looked at a picture of me and my sister at our cousin’s wedding last year. We were both bridesmaids but in this shot, I am now several inches shorter than my sister “No Fucking way I’m shorter than her!” She actually appears to be bending down so our faces line up in the shot, but I’m still shorter than her.
I reached up to the fourth shelf…and it was bit of a reach and I grabbed my senior yearbook. I flipped to page 16…I was not in the volleyball team picture “Shit”. I flipped another few pages to the basketball page where there had been a picture of me grabbing a rebound over another girls’ head. That picture was gone, replaced by a picture of Brittany Adams going for a layup. I was in this team shot though…wearing a T-Shirt that said ‘Manager’…”Shit…I’m the fucking water girl”
I flipped to my page; my eyes went right to my row…
Taylor Harris
National Honor Society 11 12
Spanish Club 9 10 11 12
Basketball Manager 9 10 11 12
Volleyball Manager 9 10
Football Manager 11 12
I didn’t even flip to the football page but I did stare at my picture…same green blouse, but those small, elfin features were even more delicate four years ago.
I sat on my bed, legs curled up in a position that would have been impossible an hour earlier. No tall girl ever curled her legs under her to sit. I flipped through my phone and sure as shit, I’m the smallest girl now in every picture. Selfies that used to have me towering over everyone now showed me standing on my tip toes.
I grabbed my purse off my nightstand and opened my wallet. “Shit…what the fuck is happening” I said as I saw the writing on my drivers’ license. Taylor Harris Height 4’11 Weight 95lbs
“I’M A FUCKING MUNCHKIN” I yelled at no one. Then I started to just laugh. After a few minutes of chuckling, shaking my head and picking at my comforter, while bouncing my foot in mid-air. I slid off the bed and walked to my closet and the mirror where I had been standing when this happened to me. I picked up the blue panties I had thrown at the mirror, expecting them to dwarf my tiny little hands, but they didn’t. I picked them up and was surprised that they looked so small. I read the tag…XS. “What…” but I stepped into them anyway. I rode them up and felt them cover my butt and snap into place along my waist “Huh”
I picked up the jeans and saw that they too were now smaller. The tag now read 2 Short I laughed “You’re telling me” But I put them on and they fit; although jeans labeled short were still a bit long on my legs. Continuing on in my quest for clothes, I picked up the bra “Wow…you’re going to knock ‘em dead with these” I said as I read 32B on the tag, but after sliding it over my shoulders, it hooked easily in the back. The blue long sleeve shirt had also changed into an XS and I pulled it over my head where it came to rest just under my belt loops. “Well at least I’m dressed…but this couldn’t get any weirder” I said.
I opened the closet door to find that all my clothes had shrunk in size with me. I’ve already mentioned the shoe thing…but it’s all just too strange to find yourself and your whole world shrunk down.
That was when I heard the car pull into the driveway. I heard the doors close and the back door open up. My Mom called out “Taylor? Are you up?”
I didn’t know what to do. I was afraid to call out and answer to my own mother until I heard “Taylor” again.
With my heart absolutely racing I answered “Yeah” weakly, the somewhat stronger “Yeah I’m up” then mumbling to myself “stupid high pitched voice”
Mom reacted in an entirely normal way “Well come down here please”
“Shit” I mumbled “what the hell is she going to do when she sees me like this…probably pass out”. “Okay…I’m coming” I said. I took a deep breath and staring walking down the hall to the stairs like someone about to be shot. I’m sure I looked nervous and stupid as I came down the steps; I had never noticed how high and steep our stupid steps were until this moment and went into the kitchen, somewhat amazed at how many steps it had taken me to get there. “Uh…” was all I managed.
Then my mom looked at me and said “Oh good you’re dressed. After your sister showers and changes we need to get to Aunt Joan’s house.”
My sister walked past me, a full head taller than me, without a glance and headed up the stairs.
I just stood there, somewhat dumbfounded thinking “Why aren’t you screaming and fainting at the fact that your oldest daughter just turned into a midget?” “Why is no one noticing that I’m more than a foot shorter than the last time you saw me?” I finally said out loud “Hello”
My mom turned to me and said “What?”
“Don’t you notice anything…you know…different about me?”
She just looked at me and said slowly “No…should I? Am I missing something?”
I have no idea what the look on my face was like at that moment but I finally said “Mom. I’m short”
She just looked at me kind of confused “Yeah…and…”
“And…I’m supposed to be tall…like really tall…”
“What?”
“Come on…you’re my mother and you don’t see anything wrong about this”
“What?”
“That I’m suddenly short!”
“Suddenly? What are you talking about honey?”
“I was 6’1” last night and now I’m like…under five feet tall”
She laughed
“What?” I asked her, hands on my hips.
“Oh Honey…you really had me going there; I mean for a second I thought there was something really wrong”
I was crushed. I dropped my hands to my sides as she walked past me and patted me on the shoulder. “Hailey got the height gene out of the two of you, she’s not as tall as I am yet, but she might still get there…but you definitely got the comedy gene”
She was gone. Down the hall and up the stairs to her room to change clothes. “She didn’t see it.” I said dejected depressed and confused. “She has no idea…it’s like I was never tall at all.”
So…that’s how that morning played out. No one thought anything was wrong and they still don’t and I don’t think they ever will. It’s like the universe just suddenly decided “Oh Hey…let’s screw with Taylor…I know, let’s take everything she knows and turn it upside down all of a sudden!” Everything I know is different now. That afternoon at my Aunt’s house, her 11 year old son, my own stupid cousin, got so happy because he was now taller than me at 5’. How embarrassing.
Also that afternoon, it started to rain; I was wearing flats because, well duh…I always wore flats. But this time, for the first time, the bottoms of my jeans got soaking wet dragging over the ground because my stubby little legs are so damn short and useless.
That night, I had to hoist myself up on the counter to get a new bag of chips down from the top shelf. My sister walked in when I was up there and said “Aw…how cute…love it when you have to climb on things…now don’t forget your step stool next time” she then patted me on the head and grabbed the bag. I have never been so humiliated in all my life. My cheeks just burned for like twenty minutes after that. I will never forget that.
I guess I have to talk about it if I’m ranting, but my boyfriend treats me totally different now too. He picked me up yesterday. Literally picked me up off the ground and held me. We were the same height and used to joke about it, but not anymore. I find myself looking up to him and everyone else these days. So I asked him if he ever wished I was taller. His response “No…you know I love short girls”
“But what if like, we were the same height?”
“Whoa. I don’t know if I could date someone the same height as me”
“What?”
“Well…I guess I find taller girls, you know, intimidating” he laughed. “And you could never wear heels if you were that tall and you know I love you in those heels”
“So; what you’re saying is that if I was 6’1”…you wouldn’t date me?”
“Why are you getting mad about this?”
“You…”
“It’s not like you can just, you know, suddenly grow like a foot and a half” he added
I had no response but I acted bitchy the rest of the night.
So I’m trying to think of the positives of this situation too. I feel like I’ve got my bitching out for a while.
I can fit in a bathtub now. Shower heads are way up there for me. It will be easier to pack my clothes, they take up way less space and there all kinds of cute outfits that tall girls can never pull off, I mean I own a romper now. I never have to worry about leg room in a car or bumping my head on a doorframe. For whatever reason I feel more feminine now in this body; there are a lot of tall girl stereotypes and being a girly girl is not one of them.  I can cross my legs underneath a table now and I will never ever again hear “How’s the weather up there?”
I do however now have to pull my seat up as far as it can go to reach the pedals and drive and the sun visor does not even help if I flip it down. Oh and I will always hear “wow, you’re short”… Thanks for the observation…I hadn’t noticed it.