señor littlejeans.

originally posted 02.27.07

good luck with that, shorty.

As many people know, I have an undying love for midgets.

Yes, I’m aware of how creepy that sounds. No, I don’t find them physically attractive. That’s just sick. Having sex with a midget seems akin to having sex with a small child. Mad sketchy. No, my undying love for midgets is related to the physical violence that one can exert upon them (because pummeling something that looks like a child is clearly preferable to fucking it).

Now, you haven’t lived until you’ve had a raucous laugh at the expense of a tiny person doubled over in pain. Oddly enough, despite my love for physical midget abuse, my favorite experience with the vertically challenged relates to an affront to the munchkin psyche.

It was 1998 (I think). Bill Clinton was in the white house regretting fellatio from a chubby girl. Usher was making sorority chicks puddly. Mark McGwire was ‘roiding it up with impunity. It was a simpler time, when boys were boys, girls were girls, and midgets were midgets. One such midget was living in my dorm. For the life of me, I can’t remember his name.

I’d like to think that he didn’t have a real name, and that all midgets have wacky little monikers like “Mister Peepers,” “Señor Littlejeans” or “Wee Willy.” You get the idea.

Every day I’d watch Mr. Peepers take those waddling midget steps around the dining hall or up the stairs (covered in ice) and chuckle under my breath. However the biggest laughs would take place in the elevator. For some inexplicable reason, our dorm’s midget lived on the top floor of a 12 story building. If you don’t see the humor in that, think about it for a second. He’s a midget. He lived on the TOP FLOOR of the building.

Wait for the comedy to set in.

The elevator button for the top floor was MUCH too high for him to reach. A frustrated midget = hours and hours of amusement. Problem solvers that they are, the whiz kids at Syracuse University housing services decided that the best solution for Mr. Peeper’s problem was to install a “reaching stick” in the elevator.

No, I’m not making this up.

They tied a long bamboo stick to the handrail in the elevator. Whenever Mr. Peepers would get in, he’d grab that stick and hack away at the elevator’s buttons until #12 glowed with midgety approval to deliver him home. People in the dorm (besides me) loved fucking with the midget reaching stick. On more than one occasion the stick was splintered into tiny shards or found its way to the hedges out front. Whenever this happened, Mr. Peepers would have to ask others riding the elevator to push the button for him.

You may be asking yourself: what if nobody else was riding the elevator? Dude just sat there and waited. So sad (*snicker*).

One evening I staggered home drunk from a night at the bars. When i made it home I found Mr. Peepers chilling in the lobby. Apparently somebody had snapped his reaching stick in half, rendering it useless to him. In my disoriented state, I decided to conduct a little experiment. We both stepped in the elevator and he looked at me expecting that I would touch the “12” button to assist him. Instead I just clicked my floor’s button and leaned back against the wall of the elevator.

The midget gave me a dirty look but never said anything. The elevator started in motion and Mr. Peepers was left with no other recourse but to grab the remnants of the stick and try hacking at the button he needed. The sight of a short person jumping about and flailing away at the elevator buttons with a short stick just pushed me over the edge. Eleven floors of me laughin hysterically with no shame…right in the midget’s face.

Even as I bumbled my way out the door I remained in hysterics. I turned around to see Mr. Peepers face one last time, and as the elevator doors closed he shot me a tiny middle finger.

As I chuckled myself to sleep that night Mr. Peepers apparently decided it was time for a change. As the weeks passed I noticed that little man was no longer ever in the elevator, and the reaching stick had been permanently removed. Turns out that the day after I giggled my face off at his midget plight, Mr. Peepers took a stand.

Word around th crack pipe was that he waddled on over to the university housing department and insisted that he be placed in a dorm room on the FIRST floor. I’d like to think that I played an integral role in the empowerment of this tiny human being. That’s me – a fine humanitarian.

My nobel prize is in the mail.

for more fun with little people, listen to my partner in tiny person acrimony – Patton Oswalt. “facts about midgets” tells the story. every fact he reports is 100% guanranteed to be true.