I was never a girl who padded her bra as I felt it was a clear case of misrepresentation. I also have never been one to wear lots of foundation or makeup – again, I am really into this concept of truth in advertising. What you see is what you get – well, at least for the most part.

You see there is one area where I must confess I have been actively engaging in subterfuge – my height. I am a short girl – 5’ 2 ½ “ (and yes, I do count the half inch…every little bit counts to the vertically challenged). When it became clear after my high school years that I was not going to get any taller I decided to actively up my height game with high heels.

High heels are the salvation of a short girl. They offer the magical opportunity to grow inches in seconds. They allow you to mix and mingle in a party without getting a cramp in your neck from constantly looking up. They allow you to speak sternly with greater credibility to teenagers who are already half a foot taller than you. They allow you to reach things on the top shelf at the grocery store. They allow you to move from the front kiddie line in photos to the back row. Oh, yes…I am a fan of high heels.

I lean toward stiletto heels as much as possible that are about 3 ½” high. This gets me from my meager 5’ 2 ½ “to a respectable 5’6”. I have grown quite comfortable in this heel height over the years. On occasion I will go up of down a ½ inch if the shoe is too adorable to ignore, but for the most part the heel height is at 3 ½”. I have discovered an interesting phenomenon over time regarding wearing high heels – wearing a consistent heel height on a daily basis leaves an imprint on folks that you are the height in stocking feet that you are in heels. It’s amazing and deeply gratifying to the short girl trying to pose as vertically average.

No one ever comments on my height except for the rare occasions when I wear tennis shoes or thongs (even my summer sandals are high heels for the most part). Only then do they say, “Oh, you are short.” It only takes a couple of those comments to keep me out of flat shoes for another few months. Folks often ask me how I can walk in the height of heel I wear, but frankly they don’t seem high at all to me anymore. Indeed, I find high heels more comfortable over an eight hour day than flats.

Fall, spring and summer are great seasons for high heels. The other half of the year – winter – can be a tad problematic. This is one of the problems I have with North Dakota winters (aside from the bitter cold, bucket-loads of snow and dangerous road conditions). I spend the entirety of the winter trying to maintain height without breaking a hip. It takes great aforethought and at times can be exhausting.

I do have one pair of flat fuzzy boots that I wear those days that I cannot avoid snow and ice outside. I will wear them outside and change back into my heels inside the building. Once, last winter, I was so weary of the constant changing from outside sensible shoes to inside heels that I just left my boots on for a meeting with our Cass/Fargo emergency management partners and Sara Lepp. Alas, they were brown and my suit was black and the horror on Sara Lepp’s face was enough to convince me to never do that again. I surmise I could buy more colors of the fuzzy boots, but somehow that feels like I am acquiescing to defeat (or should I have said – “de-feet”?).

So while Labor Day may signal to others the winding down of summer, to me (and others like me) it signals the countdown to the days of peril for short girls in high heels. The days are coming when I will only be 3 ½” away from being defined as a short girl again based on the whim of Mother Nature. If you see me out trudging around this winter in the brown boots while I am wearing black and it appears I am talking to your belly button in conversations take note that this is just a seasonal setback that I will soon recover from…at least height-wise, the blow to my psyche, well that may take some therapy.

Day sixty-four of the new forty – obla di obla da

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