Thrilled, Chilled, and Possibly Killed

Tall men don't find a lot of amusement at amusement parks. Ridiculous admission prices, sure. Stomach-churning fast food, definitely. And whole hordes of Juicy Couture-wearing midwesterners who shove Mickey Mouse aside to stalk us, screaming "HOW TALL ARE YEW?" and "ARE YER PARENTS TALL?" But fun? Not a chance. Because when you're six foot eight, thrill rides are more of an actual fright than some casual thrill.

Now, I'm not talking about those traveling carnivals that skinny tattoed dudes set up in the parking lots of your local Pic N' Save. They'll scare anybody with a brain, and not just because you'll find thicker metal in Halle Berry's bra. No, I mean the roller coasters at major amusement parks. Space Mountain, Disneyland, Six Flags. The Matterhorn, the Cyclone, Colossus. The permanent ones. The ones where the owners can't skip town if somebody sues.

We start to worry when we hear the warnings: "Please keep your hands and arms inside the car at all times." This has always confused me. Isn't there a way of phrasing it where the two body parts don't sound completely distinct? I feel like replying, "Well, I'll keep my arms in the car, but where my hands go is anybody's guess!"

As we wait in line we replay the words over and over in our heads, slowly deciphering what they mean. They're saying that our little roller coaster car will barrel past things that are both (a) stationary and (b) cement, and they'll be within the average-sized person's reach. They're saying that an average-sized person stands a chance of death or disfigurement if they protrude too far from the car.

All the regular-sized folks, of course, couldn't care less. They laugh and joke and suck down their eight-dollar sodas, knowing that any amusement park that damages their puny little asses is just asking for a lawsuit. They'll go crazy on the ride, waving at friends on the ground, flinging their arms around so they'll fly up out of their seats, trying to snap off bits of passing stucco for souvenirs. They don't give it a second thought, and there's no real reason they should.

The tall guy, though, senses a real problem. He's gone through life protruding too far, in at least a couple different directions at once. Blithely wave your hands in the air while we're careening down that hill and you're not even going to reach my Adam's Apple. In fact, you're in serious danger of picking my nose. Once I scratched the back of my neck on a cruise ship and I knocked three folks on the Lido Deck overboard. If they're saying size could be a problem for average folks, you know it's going to be a problem for us.

While everyone is blithely chattering away, then, the tall guy has gone paler than usual. He tries to maneuver toward the speakers to get further details, like there's a tornado approaching, and screams like a banshee so folks'll shut up. He realizes he's got no defense in court: with all the warnings they give, he'd be pulled apart like a crockpot chicken. "Your honor," the defense lawyer would drone, "the man was six foot EIGHT. Six foot EIGHT. Too big to fit into a FORD. Longer than a CANOE. Too tall to wear HUMAN UNDERWEAR. We were warning REGULAR-SIZED folks to be careful -- why on earth would HE get on? Surely he must have realized that getting onto this ride was like leaping headfirst into a CUISINART."

As the sweat accumulates on our foreheads, we try to imagine: how tall do amusement parks think people get?

We're painfully aware of how estimates vary. We've strolled down sidewalks where tree branches have been meticulously trimmed to a five-foot clearance. We've seen pedestrian tunnels with six foot ceilings, and we've stumbled into low-hanging power lines that wrapped around our necks like rubber chokers. Heck, I had to duck to get inside the Taj Mahal. Somebody's made an assumption here, and we suspect that in a scene involving fountains of blood and decapitation we're going to find out what.

We imagine what the world was like when this roller coaster was built. "According to our studies," the designer declares, "ninety nine percent of all people are under six foot two. I suggest, then, that we make allow at least a six foot six clearance in all the tunnels, to allow for puffy hair or Stetson hats. Sure, maybe once in a while we'll get somebody taller in the park, but that 'hands and arms' recording will definitely scare them away."

"I wonder if I'm too tall for this ride," I tell my friends as the next available car halts in front of us. "It's sounding kind of dangerous."

They laugh. "Jeez," Steve says. "For a tall guy, you're really a wimp."

And so with fingers crossed the tall person steps in, buckles himself up, and the car speeds off.

Two minutes later his train pulls into the station, just like every other. All the riders are exhilarated and exhausted and just plain out of breath ... except one. He doesn't wave to the patrons waiting to board the ride, doesn't undo his seatbelt, doesn't clamber his way awkwardly out of the car. Because he's had his head sheared clean off. He's sitting there perfectly still, but blood is shooting out of the neck and splashing all over the white vinyl seats.

The attendants look at him, all strapped in, his white knuckles still gripping the lap bar, and they share a shocked look.

"Wow," one says. "I wonder if his parents were tall."

Big Feet: Big Stuff or Big Bluff?

In the history of the universe, ever since Nothing turned into Something, since cosmic dust turned into Zara stores and salamanders evolved into aura consultants, there have been exactly four studies to determine whether Big Feet mean Big Meat.

Scientists have examined virtually everything: why the sky is blue, why birds sing, why toast always lands butter side down (Svenska Joornal der Breakfaast, 1997, pp. 162-217). So why the penis ennui? When I'm hanging around some bar, trying to choose between the reasonably-attractive tall guy and the drop-dead gorgeous short guy, the last thing on my mind is dirty bread.

Gay people blame homophobia for all kinds of stuff, but I'm thinking it's involved here as well. This is the most frequently asked question of all time, surpassing even "Who killed JFK?" and "How did that whole Trump thing start?" A million times a day somebody asks if there's a connection, and that's just the folks who catch me in clothes.

Scientists, I'm guessing, don't want to be tarred by that "gay" feather. It's okay to grow a spare ear on the back of a mouse, or genetically merge chickens with Miracle Whip so they'll start laying egg salad. But get another man excited? That's just plain weird. What are the other scientists going to think? "That Guenther, he likes the penis a little too much," they'd tell their assistants. "Now go sew these lips on that dog." And how's his wife going to feel when he comes home and recounts his day? "Honey!" he calls, setting his briefcase on the hall table, "I saw a real whopper this morning!" She might feign enthusiasm to his face, but you know she's going to tell her family he's unemployed.

Even these four studies seem a little skittish, since they all have serious flaws. The first declares there's no significant correlation between penis length and shoe size, though somehow they've avoided handling erect penises. They "gently stretch" them, like they're tight socks, and measure them that way. Because, you know, who's got the energy to get a guy hard?

I want to tell these researchers that nobody cares how stretchy penises are. I have friends who have sex with rubber plants, and friends who have sex with balloons, but I don't know anybody who wants to get screwed by taffy. Then I notice their disclaimer: they don't need to measure erections, because an earlier study showed a strong correlation between stretched length and erect length.

This sounds a little farfetched to me, so I check it out. I'll just say two things about that study: one, math is boring even with big dicks involved; and two, while the correlation between stretched and hard length was 0.793, the correlation between soft and hard length was 0.678.

Translated into English, it means guessing how much bigger a stretched penis will get is just slightly more reliable than guessing how much bigger a soft, dangly penis will get. And if that were even remotely possible, I wouldn't have cried myself to sleep three times last week.

A few months later a second group of scientists comes along, and they decide they can do better. "To hell with stretching dicks!" they proclaim. "We'll have guys measure their own!"

I'll pause here so we can all laugh at these people. Mature men with advanced degrees, wearing white coats and stethoscopes, based a study on the assumption that men wouldn't lie about their endowments. Maybe they phoned the guys and asked how long their dicks were, or maybe they shoved them into little cubicles while they waited squeamishly outside. Either way seems pretty silly to me, and I buy my cologne from Rite Aid. Doctors can remove your spleen or transplant your gallbladder or even smear a woman's pap, but getting a guy visibly excited, well . . . that's not somewhere anyone wants to go.

Anybody who's ever answered a personal ad knows how that study turned out. They didn't find any correlation between shoe size and penis length -- maybe because regardless of shoe size, everybody reported nineteen inches. Guys lie about everything, even when they know they'll get caught. "That's in dog years," they admit when you question their age. "That's on the moon," they say when you doubt their weight. As for endowment, cold weather is a popular excuse. Except I lived with one of these guys for nearly a year, and two weeks in Death Valley wouldn't have nudged him toward tiny.

Eventually a third research group steps into the breach. "That second study was nonsense," they decree, "so we're going to reenact the first." They stretch, they measure, and there's no correlation.

The veil is lifted slightly by our fourth and final group, though they're stretchers as well. "We think we found something in index fingers," they announce, "but we just didn't see enough penises." You can criticize these guys if you want -- they should get better funding, or try to sign up volunteers -- but I just want to buy them a beer and say, buddy, you and me both.

And so here I sit, a ridiculously tall man who gets asked three hundred times a day if big feet mean big meat. I don't like sharing my own personal data, at least until guys have bought me appetizers, so I've always said nobody knows. Now I can add a well-informed postscript: that nobody's done a study comparing erect penis length to shoe size, or finger length, or height. That the geniuses in our prestigious research institutes have more pressing things to do, like calculating the force required to shoot a sheep to the moon (Applied Ovine Ergonomics, Nov. 2002, pp. 523-81). That maybe it's time gay scientists stepped up to the plate.

Heck, I'll volunteer, if that'll help. Because when my time comes, I'd be pretty damned proud to have this on my tombstone:

Here lies RomanHans.

He wasn't a doctor, or a scientist, or even particularly smart.

But he sure wasn't afraid to get a guy hard.

Tall guys have to be careful who they go out with. Wander around with another tall guy and the world will cower at your feet. Hang out with an average-sized guy and you'll still get admiring glances. Venture into public with somebody short, though, and you may as well glue a "Kick me!" sign to your ass.

I'm not talking about all the problems due to the height difference. Sure, the short guy will amble along just slightly slower than a disabled dachshund, while snails and Frankenstein scamper past. Then there's the impossibility of having a conversation: his mouth is roughly ten feet from your ear, which means you'd hear more decipherable words out of a seashell. Either you pretend to understand what he's saying and just randomly nod your head, or you actually make the effort and say "What?" every time he speaks. You're going to end up a frustrated hunchback, and he'll burn out his throat yelling like Grandma. Both of you will be spitting nails, but it'll get worse when you start dating seriously and he gives you an ear trumpet for Christmas.

Now, all this is irritating -- I mean, I'd prefer a sweater -- but the real horror is how everybody else treats the two of you like a Ripley's exhibit sprung to life. The rudest folks whip out cameras to get proof to show their friends. You're not just interesting: you're one of the Seven Wonders of the World, and they'll snap away like you're the Virgin Mary made manifest over the Topeka Wal-Mart. They won't just stand across the street and worship from afar: they'll want to twist the pair of you into all sorts of insulting poses. "We wanna play up the height difference," drawls Wilbur from Bag ‘o Pretzels, Idaho, like a redneck Orson Welles. "Why doncha pretend yer stuffin' Tiny in yer big giant pocket?"

"No, no, no," his wife Durlene protests. "Have Tiny sit on Lurch's lap, like he's a ventriloquist's dummy."

I hate taking part in these scenarios, though I actually can talk without moving my lips. I leave the house feeling like an average guy, and then these folks go and spoil it. I want to run screaming for a land where people are compassionate and considerate, but somebody's got to help Tiny climb up onto a chair.

Worse than hanging out with somebody short is hanging out with someone heavy. That's a completely different phenomenon. Now the pair of you won't just look strange: you'll transform into a number. Of course, you'll be the number 10.

Oddly, this is the only time I've heard of people turning alphanumeric. If Pamela Anderson kicked a skier nobody'd see RL. If Marlon Brando screwed Wally Cox nobody'd see Qr. When a pregnant lady frisks a midget, nobody sees BY.

Nope, the number 10 is it. When two tall guys stand side-by-side, nobody says you look like 11. Hang out with a hunchback and nobody thinks you look like 12. Loiter near a snowman and nobody sees 18. But pause for a second near an overweight guy and suddenly everyone's an accountant.

More embarrassing by far, though, is hanging out with a short female, because now everyone will assume you're having sex. And now they won't just casually glance at the pair of you, or stare as you walk by. They'll chase you down the street, screaming in disbelief. They'll follow you home, pluck out their eyes, and roll them under your door to get a better look. And then the inquisition begins, always with the same idiotic question:

"Gawrsh, you're like ten dang feet tall, and she's eentsy as a mouse. How in the name of Our Good Lord Jesus do the two of you manage to have SAYYY-ex?"

Now, I get so confused by this I wonder if I'm doing something wrong. Height doesn't have anything to do with any of my bedroom activities, yet these folks give me the feeling I shouldn't let anyone under five foot eight take a ride. I mean, it's not like my partner and I aren't flexible. It's not like furniture doesn't exist. C'mon -- half the stepstools you see are like twelve inches high. They're not made for changing lightbulbs.

I thought about this long and hard, and I narrowed it down to two possibilities. One, they're concerned that while our genitals are busy, our faces are too far apart to express affection. Sure, I'm not thrilled that my mouth is closer to the Australian outback than my current companion, but as long as our middles meet I'm fine. It's like eating cookies on a roller coaster: I'm getting enough stimulation already, thanks -- let's save the Oreos until afterwards.

The other possibility is, they're worried that our genitals don't match up when we're standing. Yup, it's true: I have to bend my knees to do it doggy style, and sometimes I end up yowling like a chilly chihuahua. Apparently it's good exercise: my arms may look like sticks, but my thighs rub together when I walk.

Either way, I refuse to dignify this stupidity with an intelligent response. Usually I ignore it, but sometimes I get mad. I wonder why I have to put up with this. I wonder why these idiots think it's a question you can ask a stranger. "I do it the same way you do it," I announce. "Except I don't have any relatives in the room."