The Absurdity Of Height

To be fair, she doesn't always get noticed. The one time Wolters visited a gay bar with some WNBA teammates, no heads turned. "Everyone assumed I was a guy in drag," she says.

Wolters spent a professional season in China, squatting like Johnny Bench in showers and stopping every five feet on the street to answer the question, "How tall are you?" ("You'd never ask someone how fat they are," she says.) Tall people are always being asked if they play basketball, though it's impolite to ask a short person if he's a jockey.

If you've ever seen Manute Bol board an airplane--and I have--you have been witness to a harrowing de-evolution in posture: He is an exclamation mark at the gate, a question mark in the jetway and an ampersand in his seat.

Statistically, my 6'4" wife will be the tallest woman in a room of 125,000 people, which makes her very self-conscious when sitting in front of anyone at a baseball game.

The only time Rebecca failed to get an A in phys-ed class was in seventh grade. Her head touched the floor when she was hanging by her knees from the uneven bars, disqualifying her from gymnastics. During field hockey games opposing parents yelled, "High-sticking!" though she held her stick below the waist like everyone else.

And while she learned to embrace her height, the world still doesn't know how to return that embrace. The first time my brother Tom met Rebecca, he wrapped his arms beneath her armpits by way of greeting. Frozen in that awkward embrace, his head buried beneath Rebecca's chin, Tom finally announced, in a voice muffled by neck flesh, "I'm not comfortable hugging low."

? If you have a comment for Steve Rushin, send it to rushin@siletters.com.