Growing up, I lived in a house of tall people, with their average height being just below six feet tall.  There were setbacks to this, due to my height being five-foot-two.  I had a hard time reaching and often even seeing things which were kept on top of the refrigerator or in the top two shelves of cabinets.

It seemed unfair that I was so unlike my family.  Our extended family still thinks I am between five and eight years younger than I am solely based on my height, as they had all been this tall by fourth grade or so.  They continually tell me, “Don’t worry about it, Chatti.  You’ll be fine.  You’re still growing!”  I am 23-years-old.  Growth outlook: not so good.

Luckily, with age comes wisdom.  A better understanding of the world and your place in it.  Putting that into perspective has made being short a gift.  Mostly due to the realization we will outlive all of you tall people.

Within the next year or so, there will likely be many, many deaths due to Armageddon being upon us.  No, it has nothing to do with the Bible or the Mayan calendar; those are just cover-ups for the real impending problem: the zombie apocalypse.  During this zombie takeover, short people will be less likely to die.  Bare with me.  There are reasons.  They are real.

Short people have greater agility because, while our proportions may be the same as a tall person, we have less length to actually move.  This means we can more easily dodge brain-consumption attempts.  Especially is these are going to be the slow-moving zombies of “Night of the Living Dead,” which, for the record, are so much scarier than fast-moving zombies.

We short folks are also more likely to be able to use the agility for a longer period of time as the instance of health ailments such as heart disease and cancer are found less in short people.  Issues with many other organs occurs less in short people, as well, because our bodies are shorter and our cell reproduction can be used in more useful places, like our livers and kidneys, which both lead to healthier blood, which leads to healthier everything else.  It’s a cycle of awesome, you guys.

The planet will also last longer because we need less to live.  Namely, less food, water, our clothes require less cloth, and so on.  Because of our needs being quantitatively less than tall people, our carbon footprints are also lower.  If everyone were shorter, we would use less fossil fuel because there would be less energy used for the supplies humans need.  Tall people: the real cause of climate change.

In addition and possibly most in direct relation to the fast-approaching zombie apocalypse is our tininess gives us more options in the places-to-hide department.  I can, if necessary, fit inside of a dryer or in the cupboard underneath a sink.  Point made there, I think.

The only setback?  It’s much easier for our bodies to become unhealthy because the things we consume affect us greater than tall people.  What does this mean?  Mostly it means it’s much easier for a short person to get fat, which cancels out all of the aforementioned benefits.  So it’s probably best you start to get yourself fit, now, short people.

So, the next time someone picks on you for needing to stand on that rickety chair or that squeaky footstool—I’m talking to you, Farley Library—let it slide.  They’ll be dead soon, anyway.