Small Change

I am quite small. Not as small as my Nan (4'8", makes a great chin-rest) or my mother (4'11", wears kids' clothes). I'm 5'2", I think, or 157cm. And last week I thought about this twice.

First, I saw a female comic on stage and thought, "Blimey, she's tiny! Really small. It must be quite odd being that small". Then later, I met her and realised we were the same height. It started me wondering whether people were surprised at my smallness.

Next, I bought some weighing scales. Not just any weighing scales, though: these did everything except answer the door, and you could probably program them to do that, though the person at the door might be a bit disconcerted. They told you your muscle mass, water content, body fat and BMI - but they didn't tell you what these amounts meant.

So I had to Google up charts for all these categories, entering my height and weight to see if I was healthy. And, in the process, I discovered that I am the height of your average 13-year-old. Yes, 13-year-old. I am, literally, 13 Going On 30. I'm not a grown-up, I'm a grown-not-enough.

Lastly, the scales featured a button with a bone on it, and I asked my friend what this was for.

"Oh," he said airily, "that's for weighing your dog".

I believed him until I read the instruction page called "measuring your bone density".