DATE: Friday, May 2, 1997                   TAG: 9705020043

SECTION: DAILY BREAK             PAGE: E1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY SAVY BENG, HIGH SCHOOL CORRESPONDENT 

                                            LENGTH:   53 lines

NO SENSE WHINING; I'M STANDING TALL FOR SHORT PEOPLE OF WORLD

HEY, GOOD THINGS come in small packages. Take, for example, diamonds. And plane tickets to Aruba. And, well, me.

I'm 4 feet 7 inches tall. Oh, yeah, and a half. I aspire to reach a cool 5 feet even one day, but considering that it took me 17 years to get to this height, I guess there's not much hope. But instead of whining about how difficult it is to reach this or that, or how clothes just don't fit me right, I'm going to stand tall for my shortness and tell you all the pluses of diminutiveness.

First off, I'm a hide-and-seek champ. I remember, as a kid, I always had to be ``seek'' because finding me as ``hide'' would be practically futile. My secret? I always hid in the dryer. Whether people didn't look in there because they couldn't imagine someone could fit in there or because they just didn't think anyone was dumb enough to hide in the dryer, I don't know.

What I do know is that I was never found; the only problem with that was sometimes I'd hide for hours only to later find out that the other kids had just given up on me and went to watch cartoons. Nevertheless, I am the hide-and-seek champ, undisputed.

Secondly, I find that people are a lot nicer to me. Say, for instance, I am rushing through the halls trying to get to class on time. If I purposely ram into a much larger people in my hurry, they automatically will assume that they are the culprits for not looking where they're going. ``I'm so sorry!'' they gasp, picking me up off the floor and sending me on my merry way. Being short means never having to apologize for bumping into someone.

What if the person doesn't assume it's his or her fault, you ask? Well, that's not too much of a problem either. Knowing that fight voyeurs probably will guess the bully pretty easily, many people don't pick on me. Also, I always get to be the smaller person who gets rescued by a bigger person, who gets to say, ``Hey! Why don't you pick on someone your own size?'' Thus, I need never worry about getting my face ground in the dirt. A definite plus.

Clothes shopping is an adventure. Sure, it's somewhat difficult to find pants my size or dresses that are an exact size 2 petite, but that only means I have to extend my shopping time. And, hey, I've never been opposed to shopping longer than I should.

Being smaller than the average teen lets me see things from a totally new angle. Literally.

I guess the best thing about being small is that people notice me for me, not my statuesque figure or my skills on the basketball court. I get the security of knowing that the friends who hang around me like me for who I am and not what I can do for their reputation. I even get satisfaction from knowing that Denzel loves me for me. Ah, the bliss of blind love.

It's not so bad being short. Besides, I still get a few more years at the playplace at McDonald's. MEMO: Savy Beng is a senior at Green Run High School in Virginia Beach.

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