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So last week I wrote a post about how awesome fast food is. Yesterday I sort of had to expand upon it by phone in painful detail. It was rather awful, and I brought it upon myself. Allow me to explain.

Every once in a great while, my boss/the owner’s wife decides to come into the office to “help out.” Normally that help consists of her asking if I did a variety of things.

“Did you pay the credit cards?”
“Yep.”
“What about the rent?”
“Yes.”
“Is the insurance taken care of?”
“Sure is.”
“…and you paid the credit card, right?”
*groan*

And so on. She’s a nice lady, she’s just pretty much not any help at this point. There’s your backstory on who the person I was talking to is.

So she was telling me about how she got a phone call that morning from a lady at this market research place she has worked with a couple times. When I say “worked with” I mean that she has participated in a couple “studies” with them. She knew this lady (Julie) who called her and made it sound like they were kinda chummy. Julie wanted to know if my boss’ wife had a side-by-side refrigerater with an ice & water dispenser in the door that was less than five years old. She did not. I, however, decided I was a candidate for this study since my fridge meets the stated parameters and because the study was supposed to pay $75-100 for one’s participation.

Seeing as how I am all about the Benjamins, I asked for the name of the place so I could hit Julie up for my C-note. I started thinking about what I could spend my tiny new windfall on. Some DVDs? Paint for the ol’ homestead? Five lap dances at the Brass Flamingo? One hundred Jr. Bacon Cheeseburgers at Wendy’s? I was dizzied by the seemingly limitless number of options.

But before I had a chance to spend it all in my head prior to actually getting it, Julie took a giant piss in my corn flakes and told me that the study was full. A dark cloud moved over me with alarming speed, and I silently cursed the universe.

But all was not lost! There was another study I could possibly participate in. Apparently by telling me that and me saying, “okay,” I was going to start participating immediately. The next 12½ minutes were a blitzkrieg of questions about… FAST FOOD! Julie somehow managed to take something I enjoy very much and turn it into a horrible test of my patience. Instead of being battered with annoying questions by my co-worker, I was getting it from her buddy at the market research office.

“Please respond to the following questions on a scale of one to five. I enjoy fast food.”
“Five.”
“One is ‘I strongly agree,’ two is, ‘I agree,’ three is, ‘I’m not sure,’ four is, ‘I disagree,’ and five is, ‘I strongly disagree.’ ”
“Oh. Well, change that five to a one, please.”
“I feel guilty when I eat fast food… I would eat fast food more often if they used all-natural ingredients… I blame fast food for the downfall of the American family…”

Okay, I made that last one up, but it seemed like those were the sorts of questions I was getting asked. And they just kept coming forever and ever. Questions about specific restaurants, my eating habits, how I felt about customizing orders, what kinds of ingredients I would or would not eat, etc. Twelve minutes later, when all was said and done, Julie told me she’d run my responses through a computer and call me back in a few minutes.

I was relieved to finally be off the phone, and now finally having time to think about the nature of her questions, I got excited thinking that I might be able to try a new fast food sandwich or something at my actual focus group testing. Do you guys remember the Batman Burger that McDonald’s had back in the 90’s? It was pretty much the best fast food sandwich of all time, and for some reason I started hoping that I would get to try one again (under a different name, of course.)

But for the second time in one day, Julie burst my fragile little bubble. The fast food study was full, she said, but if anyone called and cancelled, she would be sure to call me. Dang it.

So as of right now, I would have to say my participation in market research has been an overwhelmingly negative experience. Long phone calls, annoying questions, crushed dreams, and absolutely no payoff whatsoever. I’m just hoping reading my post about fast food didn’t make you guys and gals feel the same way.

I’m a fairly tall guy. At somewhere between 6′2″ and 6′3″, I would look sort of like a midget in a room full of NBA players, but among the general populace I generally look down at people to talk to them more often than I look up.

In general, most people (especially men) seem to wish that they were taller. I’m not sure what the appeal of being taller is, but it is definitely there. Even I would be happy if I were another two or three inches taller. Don’t ask me why, as I honestly don’t know. I think it’s the same reason people love driving SUVs so much. When you are looking down at everyone else, it makes you feel more powerful.

So everyone wants to be taller because they think it’s all sunshine and lollipops and big fluffy clouds that look like things that are endearing. And for the most part, being tall isn’t so bad. You can get stuff off high shelves without grabbing a ladder, it’s easier to look for your friends when you’re at a store, and if your hair is not perfect on the top of your head, it’s not really too big of a deal because most people won’t be able to see it if you’re standing up, and if they are taller and can see it, it is probably another dude and why would he care what your hair looks like? And what do I care what some guy thinks about my hair? He will most likely be checking out any attractive girls in the vicinity anyway.

But as with pretty much everything in life, the good has to come with some bad. I’ve gone ahead and compiled a list of a few cons to being taller than normal. Those of you wishing you were taller, be careful what you wish for.

• It is very difficult to find pants that fit you well - I have a very hard time with this. Most stores just don’t stock a ton of pants with a 34 or 36 inch inseam. And it seems like the pants that are long enough are earmarked for people are heavier than I am. 34 L x 38 W? No problem. 36 L x 32 W? You might as well be shopping for a unicorn, my friends. What I usually end up doing is buying pants with a larger waist than I’d like and letting them sag a tad to get my desired length. I am pretty close to just ordering custom pants online and not feeling like a freak when I’m in the fitting room at Kohl’s.

  In a related item, since you tend to have bigger feet when you’re taller, it is worth noting that it is sometimes hard for me to find shoes that I like in my size. My feet aren’t huge (12), but it seems that when I find shoes I like, they have everything from 10½ and under and 13 and up. I don’t know what the deal is.

• Increased potential for brain damage - Not the kind of brain damage you get from huffing gasoline after school or from your mother being a raging alcoholic during your pregnancy, but you can count on cracking your head on stuff quite a bit. Cabinet doors. Sliding shower door tracks. Light fixtures. Promotional crap hanging from the ceiling in retail establishments. Tree branches over the sidewalk. There is pretty much an endless list of stuff you have to watch out for that other people walk right under without thinking twice about it. It’s not so bad that I feel compelled to wear a helmet and safety glasses, but I’ve ended up with several knots on my head from walking into something.

  Your head is not the only part of your body that’s at risk from low-lying hazards. I can’t tell you how many times I have scraped a knuckle or two open in my house while trying to change shirts. I have fairly low ceilings, and the spiky kind of ceiling texture that sort of looks like someone said, “When I’m lying in bed, I want it to look like I’m staring at a vast cave ceiling from several hundred feet away so all the stalactites look really tiny. And I want it all to be white,” and the guy building the house was all, “Okay, dude.” I stretch my arms up to take a sweatshirt off or get a blanket wrapped around myself, scrape those spikes, and then my hand is bleeding. I bet there are still some pieces of skin affixed to those spikes at various points in the house.

• You have to be extremely vigilant with nostril maintenance - One of the big downsides of looking down at people when you’re talking to them is that the person you’re charming the pants off of is looking up at you, which often means they’ve got a clear view up your nose. Nose hair levels must be kept to a desirable level, and you need to check for “bats in the cave” at regular intervals. There’s really no way around this, unless you want to look like a weirdo and wear noseplugs all the time. In that case, I don’t think you need to worry about anyone wanting to talk to you.
• Less privacy in areas where you really want it - The other day my girlfriend was in the dressing room with me when I was trying on pants (a process that involves her saying either, “….No,” or, “Turn around, let me see them… no,” or, “Why is it so hard to find pants for you?!” with every pair that I try on) when she noticed that I could see right over the top of the dressing room door into the store. I know that no one could see me disrobed (at least not the most private of my parts), but it is hard to feel like no one is watching you when you can clearly look out and see people. Nevermind the fact that you are probably being watched from overhead by store security.

  This is also an issue in public restrooms. I’m sorry this has to take a turn for the gross, but here we go. Like most people, I hate pooping in public restrooms. Normally you can just hold it, but once in awhile you’re going to have an episode wherein “holding it” is only an option if your goal is to soil yourself in the car during your race home. When this happens, and you have to take the Browns to the Superbowl in a publicly accessible place, you probably don’t want anyone knowing who’s responsible for the horrible sounds emanating from the handicapped stall (always my choice). Too bad for the tall guy, because as soon as you stand up, everyone can see you. It’s best to just hang your head, wash your hands, and get out as quickly as possible.

• Work without pay - I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been in a store when a fellow customer or employee has asked me to get something down or put something up for them. At a Disney store at the mall one time, a girl asked me if I could please shelve six to eight snow globes on a shelf she couldn’t reach without getting a ladder out of the back. I was flagged down twice in one airport terminal to reach a lightswitch in the ceiling for a ticket counter. A minor inconvenience is still an inconvenience. Unless the person doing the asking is attractive.

So there you go, shorties. A whole list of stuff you maybe never thought of before. And it’s entirely possible that there are one or two significant drawbacks that I’m forgetting about.

With all that said, though, I’m happy with my height. All the bumped heads in the world are better than being a shrimpy ol’ half-pint. And I should know, since until my sophomore year of high school, I was generally one of the smallest kids in my class.

So even though I wasn’t going to bring over all my posts from the old blog, I went ahead and just imported it. 2½ yrs worth of stuff. Tonight or, more likely, tomorrow at work, I’ll be taking off the posts that I think are boring or just plain stupid, but there is some decent stuff I wanted to get up. I’ve also got a lot of images I need to get uploaded for the old posts, so a lot of the older things won’t look good for awhile, but they’re up. Just wanted to give everyone a head’s up as to why my “new” site suddenly has over 200 entries.

UPDATE: All of 2006’s entries should be okay, and most of 2004’s got blown away. It was mostly mundane stuff about my day-to-day, which I have tried to get away from in favor of content that I think outsiders might enjoy more. 2005 is still largely untouched.

Should have a “real” entry tomorrow instead of just a site update. If you’ve just recently found this site, feel free to browse the archives.