I’m getting off track, though. This isn’t the story of how my wife and I got our beautiful home. This is another story entirely.

Still gloriously in the all together and a little stiff in the legs, a low moan escaped my lips and mingled with the sound of liquid hitting liquid echoing through the master bathroom. Everything in my house was a high-loft, comparatively speaking. There was something luxurious about it.

Once my tank was on empty, I looked down at myself- pale flesh and tiny little red hairs all over- and smiled. I liked my body hair. It made me look and feel more manly (though Catherine preferred calling me “fuzzy”). My body hair wasn’t super bushy or massive, but no one was mistaking me for a toddler, either. Good. Good enough, anyway.

Leaning over so as not to fall in, I placed one hand on the tank for balance and then flushed. After climbing down from the toilet’s step stool, I did my other morning ritual of looking down and clapping my hands on my belly.

Damn. I was getting kind of chubby. Too much candy and late night snacking. That was no good. If a Little ever got too fat, one of those giants (sorry Amazon readers, that’s what you look like to us) might see a beer gut and think “baby fat,” and then their maternal instincts would get triggered.

That’s the curse of getting old. Your metabolism starts to slow down on its own, but your eating habits don’t. At thirty-one, I was ancient in Little terms. No, we live just as long as the Amazons and Tweeners, on average. But in Amazon country, most Littles were lucky to remain free and uncribbed past the age of twenty-eight.

Amazons were just as likely to “adopt” an eighty year old as an eighteen year old, but if you made it to thirty-five, chances are you’d gotten your shit together enough so that you could make it to eighty. So yeah, I was gettin’ up there. Better old than never being allowed to grow up.

Climbing yet another stepping stool so that I could reach the sink, I grabbed my razor and shaving cream and started to lather up. I promised myself that I’d pop in that yoga DVD again as soon as I got home from work.

I hated yoga, but having a pre-recorded Amazonian fitness instructor tell me to assume the child’s pose on the yoga mat was better than a real giant telling me to lay down on a changing mat. Jogging as exercise was out, lest some passerby think I was running from something and decide to “protect” me.

Weights were a no go, too. A Little with a developed physique was unfortunate, as far as Amazons were concerned. A Little with rippling musculature was a challenge, a dare, or so I reckoned.

Yoga was really my best option.

Shaving was another kind of balancing act for me. My bright red goatee definitely made me look more “distinguished” and less like a toddler, but with it came more responsibilities. Serious, serious responsibilities. If my chin hair ever got too long or scraggly, someone might think that I didn’t know how to take care of myself, and it’d be all downhill from there. Same principle if I got a five o’clock shadow anywhere before 5pm. It’s why I shaved twice a day, just in case. A big ol’ fuck-off grandpa beard was never going to be an option for me, sadly.

The top of my head was its own balancing act. My own hair had a tendency to grow curly- “adorably” curly, which made me a potential target. However, my paranoia never let me feel comfortable going full buzz cut, either. Bald could be just as dangerous. Barbers that cut Little hair (and didn’t offer a lollipop after) in this part of the country were rare.

I was lucky in some respects, though: a curly top was bad, but long, flowing hair was worse.