"Little" Known Facts I've Learned About Little People

"Hey you, Mr. Average Size! Watch your step, but don't 'look down' on them. Little people are everywhere here in big ol' L.A.!!"

That would be the opening line of my P.S.A. for little people in Los Angeles, if the city suddenly decided to pay me for something like that. As of yet, I haven't received any such offers, but maybe after this blog post, I will! 

For those of you who don't already know, my girlfriend's brother is a little person. His name is Mikey and he's an actor out here. Up until a few days ago, we had been staying at his place in the Valley (more on that later), which means, we had been spending a lot of time together. And let me be the first to tell you, he leads a very normal life. There's nothing Mikey does differently than any of us "averages" (what they call normal sized people). He eats. He sleeps. He watchs TV. Just like us.

However, there are a couple of "little" known facts about little people that I'd like to share with you now:

• If you spend any significant amount of time with a little person, they will start dressing like you. It's what known as the "Mini Me" syndrome. Case in point:

• Little people really do enjoy punching "averages" in the balls, just like in the movies. I'm telling you, they love it. As soon as they see an unsuspecting crotch nearby (which, as you can imagine, is often), they thrust their little fists at it as hard as they can. And then proceed to do a lil' jig. 
• Little people scare the fuck out of children. This one's actually for real. I've watched it over and over and over again: kid between the ages of 3 and 10 will be happily prattling on to his mom about crapping in his pants or whatever when all of a sudden, his face goes white and his jaw drops: a little person has come into his purview. And it blows the kid's fucking mind. You can literally see his thoughts: "What the--?? What is that??! Looks...like...Dad...but he's my size?! How can that be?? MUST!! STARE!! HARDER!!!" 
• Little people don't mind texting while driving (this one's also for real). You'd think they would. After all, they're technically handicapped: their limbs are shorter than ours, their cars have to be specially-engineered for them to drive, or else they have to have these little stilts rigged onto the pedals. But that doesn't seem to affect their ability to scare the fuck out of us "average" passengers. Case in point, Mikey's roommate, Becky, was driving us down Sunset the other night. The street was packed with oncoming city busses, SUV's, cars, bikes and pedestrians. But where were Becky's eyes? In her little head, which was tilted a full 90 degrees south so that she could text a message to a friend while we careened into our deaths. I yelled at her, "Becky, you're fucking texting?!" She just laughed, looked up and responded absent-mindedly, "Oh, there's the CNN building." For that, I gave her two shots to the dome.

• Little people love when "averages" play what they call "Godzilla" in their homes. Here's how you do it: just stand up real tall and straight while you're in a little person's abode. Then, start stomping around, moaning loudly and knocking shit over like you're Godzilla smashing up Tokyo. Push over dressers like they're apartment buildings. Upend carpets like they're railroads. And most importantly, grab the little people like they're, well, little people, and try stuffing them in your mouth. It sounds like an awful thing to do, but believe me, they just laugh and laugh and laugh (and shit gold coins). 
• Little people train cats to get food for them (another "real" factoid). We just moved into Mikey's friend's house for a brief stay. Her name is Nico, she's a little person and for the next few weeks, she'll be driving around the Northwest while Christin and I take care of her home and her feline, Bug. And let me tell you, I think Nico secretly likes eating birds. Because she seems to have coaxed Bug into bringing her a new winged creature to her doorstep every morning for breakfast. It's like clockwork. As soon as we wake up, Bug's there with a pair of bird legs hanging out of his mouth, just grinning. Here we all are with the trained assassin on Christin's lap:

• Finally, little people love when you steal their Lil' Rascals. I'm talking about their scooters that they sometimes ride around on. Don't ask; just take 'em and go for the riiiide of your life (while wearing the same t-shirt you wore from the day before)!