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What Grinds Our Knees: Being too tall

By: Daniel Salcedo Rubio, Features Editor

Being tall might be something many want, but honestly, it’s a full-time curse. My knees? Crunchier than a Nature Valley granola bar. Running? Please. I’m one bad jog away from all my joints crumbling like a Nature Valley granola bar. Lower back? Falling apart faster than a Nature Valley granola bar. And to top it all off, I’m also more likely to get cancer just because I have more cells. Like, damn, can I live please?

And it doesn’t end with physiology. The world is just not made for people my height. I know, I’m an outlier, but it’s still so annoying that there are barely any accommodations. Most forms of seated transportation will likely be irritating at best, and nerve-damaging at worst. Once, on an eight-hour bus trip from Paris to Berlin, not a single seat had enough space for me to sit. Can’t sit, yet I can’t stand either — not like I would’ve been able to. So, I cramped my lower body into a seat, knees pressed flat against the seat ahead, calves numb. Any prospects of ever competing in the Olympics are gone. 

Once, while doing a fitting for a disposable hazmat suit for a human tissue culture course, I couldn’t fit into the largest available size and had to be excluded from the practical section of the course — too tall for science.

So yeah, I guess it really is true that the grass is always greener on the other side — or maybe the weather is nicer at another height?

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