Dating a Dwarf

I started dating a chick. Jen likes horsies, wears scarves, and talks about Ryan Gosling all the time. From this description, she would seem to be the same as any modern woman.

However, there's one 'small' difference; She is a dwarf.

You might think it's terribly hard for a normal-sized human like me to have a relationship with someone so very tiny, but like everything, there are advantages and disadvantages.

Disadvantages of Dating a Dwarf
There are more drawbacks than the very predictable ones, such as heightened (lol) belligerence and not being allowed on roller coasters.

Consider, also:

Death Stools
Jen's flat has a spice shelf. She can't reach it. Now if that were me, I'd put my spices on a lower shelf. But no. The spice shelf is the spice shelf and there can be no discussion.

So, with scant regard to her personal dignity or my safety, she clutters her kitchen with tiny stools designed for babies. Every time I go into her kitchen I risk tripping up and smashing my brains all over the surfaces.

Death Stool

Which she wouldn't be able to clean because the cleaning products are stored out of her reach.

Can't Share Pillows / Pillow Fights Are Uneven Contests

Jen has an expensive Swiss memory foam pillow. She persuaded me to buy one. We had this conversation:

Jen: Do you like your new pillow?
Me: Yes. It's very comfy. It's strange though...
Jen: What?
Me: I thought I'd bought the same one as you but... I don't remember yours being that big.
Jen (turning red): Oh.
Me: What?
Jen (squirming): Nothing.
Me (masculinely): Say it.
Jen: Well, mine is child-size.
Me: !!!
Jen: Are you writing that down? Don't write that down!

I took some photos of her sleeping on my pillow. Her head looked like a solitary egg on a vast, empty buffet table. She refused to let me use the photos. So here's how my head looks on her pillow:

Possibly my hair gets a bit more ruffled

Colonisation of My Lower Shelves

We've all seen sitcoms. We know what happens. A guy meets a girl and slowly she starts taking over his flat. I recently noticed it happening to me.

But because she's so tiny and I don't allow Death Stools in my flat, Jen can only reach the bottom of my bathroom cabinet.

Look:

On the top you see my contact lenses; the next shelf has razors and toothpicks. The lowest shelf, the one in range of her little arms, has some girl things. I simply have no clue what the liquid in the orange bottle IS.


My best guess is that it is growth serum, and I'm terrified that one night I'll be so drunk I'll use it as mouthwash.


Advantages of Dating a Dwarf

There are the obvious things, such as always having an ice-breaker ("Hey, have you met my dwarf?") and I can offer to give her a massage knowing it'll only take five minutes. But also:

Being Allowed To Play in Playgrounds

Slides and see-saws are FUN but last time I went on some swings a woman came and shouted at me to get out of her garden. But if I'm out with Jen, people can't be sure what's going on. Perhaps she's my daughter? Or I'm doing charity work of some kind?

So I get to use the equipment. Jen likes it too, because it makes her "feel like a giant."

Fee! Fi! Fo! Fum! I smell the blood of an Englishman!

The correct way to ride a wooden horse

Getting Hero Points

It is well known that women compare men with storybook heroes and award or deduct points for heroic/unheroic deeds. Men who score a lot of hero points are pursued and kept; men who don't are discarded.

I lose points every time I say, "Okay, I'll just put some clothes on and be right there." I lose points every time I run out of milk, or don't hang towels up, or burp too loudly (rude) or too quietly (not masculine). Points are lost for so many reasons that it's a constant struggle to remain in the 'hero zone'.

Fortunately I score points just by being tall enough to reach things, or even to see over walls or hedges.

Can't Lose Fights

Another obvious one. Having dated a dwarf for a while, I realise that this comic strip is a true story.

The picture comes from a website called 9gag, which I've been giggling through for half an hour instead of thinking of a proper ending to this post.

So that's it for Dating a Dwarf.

Coming soon: Death Threats from a Dwarf



Update, September 2014
I get a fair few hits on this page through search terms like 'advice on dating a dwarf' and such. Sorry if this site wasn't what you were looking for - I didn't set out to mislead you. If you want some real advice, treat your girlfriend well no matter how tall she is. Example - don't make fun of her on the internet.




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Asterix and the Soothsayer: Latin Jokes Explained

A bigger, better version of this article now appears on my new Asterix site - click the white link just above this article. The one that says 'Everything Asterix'.

I understand it's annoying to be directed here and have to go there, but I promise it's worth it.

The new site is extremely beautiful, by the way. It's probably going to win an award and be preserved by UNESCO.

The difference between this cramped, stuffy blog and that luxury site is the same as when you sell your one-bedroom flat in London and buy a six-bedroom villa anywhere else in the country. The furniture is better, the air is clearer, and you can stroll around your garden smelling flowers and sighing contentedly.

It also has a new webcomic called Asterix vs Hitler.

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How to Stop Coughing

This is my first blog post since discovering a miracle cure for rampant coughing.

Four weeks ago, there was a heatwave in Zurich. I hate heatwaves because while they make women dress sexy, they also stop me sleeping. When I can't sleep, I can't write. I can barely flirt with the sexy women.

When the temperature started to normalise, all my mental run-time was focused on a date with a local uber-babe. Come the evening of the date, she pressed herself against me and huskily whispered in my ear, 'I have something for you...'

Then she coughed directly into my open mouth, said 'You're It' and scarpered, laughing.

I shambled home and after 36 hours of feverish sweating I spent ten days coughing all night. 

Until last Thursday night, I'd had literally eight seconds of sleep in the previous three weeks, and no inclination to write anything.

I tried everything (I'm using a pretty relaxed definition of the word) - sleeping pills, cough medicine, flu medicine, beer, wine, pizzas, porn, sleeping upside down. Some things worked for a while then lost their edge. Some things did nothing.

Thursday was the final straw. Having felt I was getting better I then started coughing so loud and so without cease that I genuinely expected the neighbours to knock and complain. 

It pissed me off. It made me furious. It filled me with a righteous anger. After punching my pillows and all the other soft things in my flat for a good hour, I sat tight-lipped (between bouts of lung-busting coughs) at my laptop and typed 'how to stop coughing.'

Googling remedies! Me! You can imagine how low I had sunk.

The first result - and it's another mark of my desperation that I clicked on the first search result - was from a website apparently designed in 1993 featuring grating backgrounds, spelling and grammar mistakes aplenty, unfathomable graphics, and 'secret Soviet Union techniques' peddled by a scary looking Russian man. All Russian men scare me now, after a recent run-in with a Russian student who I may blog about one day. Suffice to say that I am mortally afraid of Russian males and would rather eat my own face than take medical advice from one.

But I was desperate.

And three minutes later I was - pretty much - a hundred percent cured.

I'll link to the site so you can giggle at it. But the content seriously works, so if you have a cough and want to control it, try this:

Breathe less.

Yep, that's basically it. There's some guff on the site about coughing causing reduced oxygen levels in the brain, but it doesn't matter. You just need to know what to do.

Start by holding your breath as long as you can (wonderfully called 'self-suffocation'), then breathe exclusively through your nose (in and out, DUH). On the out-breath, try to consciously relax your muscles. If you feel like coughing, try to do it with your mouth closed. (It's all good for restoring your oxygen/CO2 balance, comrade. Warning - self-suffocation carries a risk of suffocation. But seriously, don't die while trying this. That would be ridiculous.)

After three minutes of doing that, I was lying in bed thinking 'huh!' And then slept like a baby. I woke up on Friday feeling pretty damn good, and have been feeling 90% better and 90% less coughy every day since (exponentially). It's frikkin ACE.

Thank you, Soviet Union remedy!

Check out the scary Russian man and his legitimately amazing advice here.


Update - a week after finding the cure, I'm sleeping without problems and have some minor coughing through the day. When it starts to flare up I just breathe through my nose for a bit and it gets better. It really works!

Asterix and the Laurel Wreath: Latin Jokes Explained

A bigger, better version of this article now appears on my new Asterix site - click the white link just above this article. The one that says 'Everything Asterix'.

I understand it's annoying to be directed here and have to go there, but I promise it's worth it.

The new site is extremely beautiful, by the way. It's probably going to win an award and be preserved by UNESCO.

The difference between this cramped, stuffy blog and that luxury site is the same as when you sell your one-bedroom flat in London and buy a six-bedroom villa anywhere else in the country. The furniture is better, the air is clearer, and you can stroll around your garden smelling flowers and sighing contentedly.

It also has a new webcomic called Asterix vs Hitler.

The Mansions of the Gods: Latin Jokes Explained

Asterix things are now over at EverythingAsterix.com - bigger, better, more beautiful. Check it out!

Book 17 - The Mansions of the Gods

1.
The story: This is one of only two Asterix books without the hero's name in the title. In it, Caesar plots to cut down the forest surrounding Asterix's village and build an apartment complex named The Mansions of the Gods. He sends an architect, Squaronthehypotenus, to carry out the deed. Even after encountering the Gauls, he decides to press ahead.

Professor Ibrox explains: "Beati pauperes spiritu means 'blessed are the poor in spirit'. It's from the Sermon on the Mount.

The architect says that the gods seem to favour those with the least to recommend them. He's thinking of the Gauls, but it could equally be applied to Celtic fans, or nightclub bouncers."
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2.
The story: The architect has had great success in cutting down the forest, unaware that the Gauls are using magic potion to immediately regrow the felled trees. He wakes the centurion to announce the good news. The centurion has more experience of dealing with the Gauls, and is not easily excited.

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Professor Ibrox explains: "Don't count your chickens before they're hatched - Gnothe seauton. It means 'know thyself' and should really be written gnothi seauton as it is the aorist second person imperative, as I'm sure you knew.

It doesn't make sense, but perhaps that's the intention. Probably it's just a setup for the 'it's Greek to me' line. Instead of Know Thyself they should have written 'Know the Gauls'. That would be more logical, but isn't a famous Greek phrase.

My head is not a happy place to be right now. Still, at least the bouncer came off worse."


3.
The story: The Gauls have changed strategy and have decided to let the Romans build the Mansions of the Gods. The Romans publish a promotional brochure to drum up interest in the flats.

Mansions of the Gods brochure, page 2

Gauliseum detail enlarged

Professor Ibrox explains: "I made Andrew include this one because it's one of my all-time favourite Asterix gags.

Basically, the brochure shows how great life will be when the Mansions of the Gods are finished. One of the things they plan to build is not a Colosseum but a Gauliseum - a great pun.

You could go there to watch the Gaulacticos play football or listen to the Spice Gauls."


4.
The story: For a laugh, the Gauls have sent Cacofonix to sing in the Mansions, which is the equivalent of sending Serge Gainsbourg. Predictably, the occupants panic and start preparing to leave.

Professor Ibrox explains: "Quousque tandem? Brilliant joke!

Quo usque tandem is the first bit of the first line of Cicero's oration against Catiline. Catiline was one of the chief conspirators during Cicero's consulship, and Cicero had the pleasure of prosecuting him, but his speeches against him are florid and overly rhetorical.

The whole line means 'When will you stop testing our patience?' You could say Quo usque tandem? in many situations - for example, to the man in the next cell who keeps singing Je t'aime... moi non plus, complete with moaning.

Shut up, you drunk old dirty old man or you'll get some of what I gave that Celtic-loving bouncer!"



Professor Ibrox will return in 6 weeks (or fewer with good behaviour).
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