38. I was living in Korea and we did a gift exchange at work. A female co-worker got me shoe lifts (kkalchang). It is, or was, rather common for shorter men to wear them. I’m only 5’8″ and, naturally, some people assumed I was shorter and was just wearing kkalchang. I opened the box and the look on my face said it all. Her expression went from joy to terror thinking she had insulted me. I threw on a nice face and slid them on, I was almost 5’11”. It was at that moment that I realized a good deal of people assumed I was 5’5″ / 5’6″ pretending to be 5’8″. I was not super happy.
39. When I was about 11 years old I woke up one random morning a few weeks before Christmas to find a brand new Super Nintendo on my kitchen table. Just sitting there. I started freaking out. My mom wakes up and informs me that the night before was her work holiday party and she won the SNES as a door prize.
But you see, there was this really cool leather jacket she had her eyes on so she was going to return it to the store and keep the cash. But if I really wanted it I could buy it from her. She convinced me to sell my original NES and all my games/accessories and give her all the money. Then I was allowed to have the SNES.
At the time I was too young and stupid to think much about it. But only years later did I realize how shitty this was. Personally, if I were the parent, I don’t think I would’ve just given the SNES to my kid right away. But I would probably have thrown it in the closet and said, “Sweet. Christmas shopping is done for little Otto this year.”
