Mini Us
Who doesn’t like a good ferry tale? The morals of the stories alone make most of the ferry tales worth reading. Once upon a time there were a man and wife who loved each other very much. They had both grown up in the Midwest and ate way too many donuts as children. He had actually figured out how to scam the milkman into thinking he was supposed to leave a dozen donuts with the milk. She asked her mother how to bake so she could bake her own sweet cakes. They grew and grew and grew to be bigger teenagers than those around them. This made them both learn to be better friends, kinder classmates and considerate people. Big kids need to be nicer to have any way of being liked.
A recent study on bias shows that all categories of diversity are less disadvantaged than they were ten years ago. The one exception is weight. Those people who are overweight are actually more biased against than they used to be, even though they shouldn’t be. I think we can assume that’s not because they are acting out more, but rather because everyone wants so much not to be like them that they shun them, even though they shouldn’t. People of size are disadvantaged more than normal-sized people would ever know, even though they shouldn’t be. And there is little doubt that it afflicts women more than men, even though it shouldn’t. Men can hide their size under the heading of big. Height helps men to any point. Women only benefit from height to a point, then it works against them, even though it shouldn’t.
Men and women of size appreciate being loved more than normal-sized people do. When two people like this man and wife meet and fall in love, they know the wounds of youth of each other and are more able to salve those wounds with daily doses of affection. Everyone should take a lesson from this because, in truth, everyone has wounds of youth that need love and attention. Divorce rates would be much lower if people learned this lesson. And by extension, people in happy marriages are probably nicer to people around them. The knock-on effect of kindness is kindness. That may be an over-simplification and generalization, but It’s a good bet it’s true.
This man and wife both decided a decade ago that they should get bariatric surgery to help them lose weight. The man went first and lost about 100 pounds. Then the woman went and lost about 70 pounds. Neither became slim or even close to svelte, but it helped. They felt better and were able to do more. And even though both the man and the woman had fewer wounds of youth accordingly, they still paid attention to treating each other with care and affection. The loss of 170 pounds did not alter their marriage and did not make them any less kind as individuals.
Complexes about being smaller than normal seem well-understood. The Napoleon Complex or Lilliputian Affect speak to these. The other side of that coin is the Leviathon or Gulliver Syndromes. So when the man and wife heard about the newest attraction in Times Square, called Gulliver’s Gate, they were intrigued. They went and saw 10,000 square feet of miniature versions of New York City and the world’s greatest attractions. Everyone loves a train set and any kind of miniature village. The man and wife saw something they had never seen before. It was a technological recording booth that took three dimensional photos or videos of the man and wife and presumably with some form of 3D printer, produced a six inch high statue of the man and wife. It actually made two statues with one to be placed on a chosen mini attraction (they chose the Statue of Liberty) and one to take home.
The statue sits in a place of honor in the living room of the man and wife and acts as a reminder of many things. It reminds them that they will forever be together, joined as it is at the hip. It reminds them that even though they are smaller than they used to be, they are both still large sized. The amazement of the 3D printing process is the exactness of the likenesses of the statue. He notes a small scar on his neck and he notes the beauty of her face, which rings through the resin like a bell.
The man and wife have not been back to Gulliver’s Gate to see their statue at the Statue. But they will do that at some point. They hope the exhibit lasts for years the way they know their love for one another will last. The 3D statue is made of a resin that looks like it will last forever. It will stand somewhere (hopefully not in a dusty box) as a testament to love and kindness.