Bear with me on this one

‘I’m not the right size!’

 

Who said that?

 
The letters that appeared on the screen when I began to type said that. 4 point that was the size they were and that is very small.  I could hardly see them. I made them bigger to make them happier and  started to type again, because there was something important I wanted to write about this morning.

 
But as soon as my fingers hit the keyboard.

 
BIP.

 
Back  went the letters  to 4 point again, and so there I was, hunched at my desk, squinting like a spy through a key hole. But then, when I finally got the type size right, I had completely forgotten what it was I wanted to write about and instead I started to think about not being the right size.

 
When I was small I could fit in a wicker basket and imagine it was a boat floating slowly down a river oozing with crocodiles.  But you know what?  That wasn’t good enough. I wanted to be bigger to deal with the crocodiles. But then when you are small  you sort of get bigger almost without realising it. When that happened to me, as of course it did, and  I could no longer fit in the basket, I was seriously disappointed. I no longer had my boat and I didn’t have the crocodiles either.

 
Now, I wouldn’t mind being smaller, not like the incredible shrinking man but just down a bit, you know, not size zero, because if you get to size zero you are  just about invisible.

 
Seriously?

 
Seriously.

 
Seriously invisible.

 
Seriously invisible has its advantages especially  if you are a thief, or a spy, or a watcher, or a stander-in-the-corner if you have been naughty, or a sitter- in-the back row of the classroom, over on the edge, by the window, looking out, the head down, collar up type. In fact, I reckon, most people, at some time feel the need to go off grid, be out of sight, or hide round the corner, just to be… safe.

 
Except round the corner isn’t always safe. When I was a little smaller than I am now, round the corner there were always the hungry bears who’d get you if you walked on the cracks in the pavement. It was always on the last leg of the journey back home that I’d remember the bears and I never knew whether to go slow and be careful or run and get back to Mum quickly, because inside my head there was a voice shouting:

 
DO NOT STEP ON THE CRACKS! YOU DO NOT WANT TO BE EATEN BY THE HUNGRY BEARS!

 
I lived in London. There were no hungry bears! But I still avoided standing on the cracks between the paving stones… because I rather hoped that perhaps, just by chance, or against the odd there was a bear hiding there; which  is confusing, I know, but that’s how it is.
So, this is what we have to put up with: a little bit of confusion and no bears in the city.

 
Foxes?

 

Plenty of foxes.

 

Rats?

 

Loads of rats. Bus loads of rats, laughing their heads off at us, but no bears, not in this neck of the woods.

 
Neck of the woods? What is that?