Coming Up Short

I’m short. I’m a fully grown adult woman, but I’m not quite 5 feet tall. When I was 8, I was really, really short. And small. Much shorter and smaller than my peers. All my life, people have found it amusing as well as necessary to inform me that I’m short, as if I had managed to miss that fact. {I have perfected a smile for those people.}

I was pretty used to being teased about being short. I don’t think it ever really bothered me until the first day of 3^rd grade. We had moved across town and I was going to a new school. We went and got registered at the new school the day before school started. I knew which room to go to and when we got to school that day in early September of 1965, I climbed up the stairs to the second floor and headed for my room, ready to meet my new teacher.

The teacher was standing at the door. I have long since forgotten her name…probably blocked it out. As I approached the door intent upon entering the room, she put her arm down and stopped me. We had the following conversation:

Teacher: Kindergarten is downstairs.

Me: (proudly) I’m not in kindergarten. I’m in the third grade!

Teacher: You are not big enough to be in the third grade. Let’s go downstairs and find your room.

Me: (frustrated) I AM in the third grade. I passed second grade last year and I’m in the third grade. My mother showed me this room yesterday and I’m in the third grade. (possibly stomped my foot at this point)

Teacher: (taking me by the arm and practically dragging me down the stairs) We’ll just see about that! {I’m quite sure that she looked like Miss Gulch and may have even called me ‘my pretty’}

If she had asked my name, she would have found out that I was on the list to be in her classroom. I wasn’t on the list to be in Kindergarten, so we went to the office. The principal told her that I was, indeed, in the third grade. I imagine I got sassy and said, “I TOLD you I was in the third grade!”

We went back upstairs and she showed me to my desk.

I did NOT like her. Imagine! She thought I was in Kindergarten!! I doubt that she liked me, either. {I think she might have looked like Hitler, now that I think about it. I'm sure she had a little black moustache and wore jack-boots.}

We moved out of state 6 weeks later and I think I shook the dust off of my feet when I walked out of that classroom the last time. That was in the Bible, you know.

My new teacher, Mrs. Wells (see…I liked her well enough to remember her name), did not think I was too short. She did, however, think that my name was too short. We were doing an art project that involved using your initials. For it to work right, you had to have 3 initials. My name was Mollianne Buster and I never had a middle name (much to my chagrin). My parents felt that Mollianne Buster was plenty of name for such a little girl as me.

Mrs. Wells didn’t think so. In fact, she told me that EVERYONE has a middle name. I was so ashamed. It must have been un-American and maybe un-Christian as well as being un-couth to be without a middle name. Why…maybe my parents didn’t think well enough of me to bother to give me one. I had always wanted one. In fact, I remember telling people that my middle name was Irene, because that was my Grandmother’s name and I wanted to be named after her, too. Mother would always make me go back and tell the truth. My name was NOT Mollianne Irene Buster. But oh! How I wanted it to be.

Mrs. Wells solved our dilemma regarding the art project. She told me to write my name like this: Molli Anne Buster. That made my art project work. It made Mrs. Wells happy. I went home and asked my precious Mother why she had told me my name was Mollianne-all-one-word? Mrs. Wells said it was two words. And, everyone knows that your third grade teacher is the seat of all authority about e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g!

My precious little Mother popped her top! She marched me back up to the school. She took me in to the teacher and informed her that my name was Mollianne-all-one-word and that I didn’t require a middle name. Mollianne Buster was plenty of name for such a little girl. My mother is a force of nature when everything is hunky-dory, but you don’t mess with her baby girl. You just don’t do it. Not if you are smart. She turns into a raging force of nature and its not usually good for the person who has called out that sleeping dragon. Mother doesn’t take prisoners.

Mrs. Wells came to understand immediately that my name really was Mollianne-all-one-word and that we’d just have to work around the three initial thing-y. We got along swimmingly after that.

The rest of the story is that I got pretty sassy about being called Mollianne after that. After all, it was my name, and it was all-one-word. So, I quit answering if anyone called me Molli (or Molly or Mollie). Or, I would spout that my name is MolliANNE. My dear Grandmother, Neenie, heard me say that quite rudely once and she called me on it. She explained to me that I had a very beautiful name, but that it was unusual. She said that it was not nice for me to make others feel uncomfortable because they didn’t understand my name. It was my job to make other people feel okay about it. She said that is what we call being ‘gracious’ and that I should learn to be gracious about my name. It was the right thing to do. I believed that she was right, and have happily answered to a variety of names since then; Maryann, Holly, Polly, Molene, Mollianna, Mollie. Because, Neenie was right. People are often embarrassed when they realize they have called me by the wrong name, and that certainly isn’t good.

Eight was the year I came up short…both in stature and in name. But it was one of those ‘that which doesn’t kill us makes us strong’ sort of things. I learned two valuable lessons. I learned that it is okay to be underestimated and considered too short. I also learned that being gracious is always a good thing.