sisters, don’t be shy; let your body get loose, you ain’t too fat to fly

So I’ve got this question which has been perplexing me for years and years, but I’ve never bothered putting in the time to try and get to the bottom of it because, really, when you’re as smart as I am, it’s sometimes nice to have something you just don’t know. It grounds me, and helps me relate on at least some small level to my intellectual inferiors.

Like you.

And I know you’re probably excited at the prospect of me wanting to relate to you in some manner, but calm yourselves, Internet. Because you’re wrong. I’m bringing it up now because I’ve tried to relate to you and your kind as of late, and you know what it gets me? It gets me asked for favors at entirely too late of an hour, that’s what. As if me not knowing the answer to this one question makes it okay to call past 10:00. So enough already with the relating and the favors.

Anyway, so I’ve got this question which has been perplexing me for years and years, and I’m sharing it with you now because, for one, I want you to understand the trivial things I’m able to spend my mental energy on since I have the other parts of life figured out — in your face! — and for another, I’m hoping someone might know the answer.

But first, a lesson in zoology:

The term midget is regularly thrown around to describe all tiny people, the big headed/curved legged kind and the kind that look like real people but way shorter. In actuality, though, a midget has proportional limbs. Think Webster, not Tattoo. Tattoo, with his freakishly large head and sharp teeth and French accent, is a dwarf.

We still call dwarfs midgets because the word midget just sounds funnier. And that’s okay, because really, who cares? It’s like referring to a spider as an insect; the only people who care that there’s a difference are nerds. And if there’s one thing I’ve taught you, it’s that we do not care what the insignificant think, nerds and midgets included.

But I’ve gone off on a tangent.

Okay, so here’s the question which has been perplexing me for years and years: Why do Dwarfs get offended when you call them midgets?

They prefer to be called “little people,” despite that term being only half true, and get so pissed at being called midgets that they’ll bite you right on your ankles. And while no one cares what a midget thinks, who has the time to go to a hospital to get a rabies vaccine when there are all those people in line ahead of you getting the swine flu shots? It can take an entire afternoon!

And yeah, while we can all agree that they’re both disgusting, I think we can also all agree that, on a scale of one to ten, with one being the least disgusting and ten being the most disgusting, that midgets have a lower disgusting ranking than do dwarfs. Probably eight for midgets and ten for dwarfs, but those are estimates so don’t base your term papers on it.

So midgets getting pissed at being called dwarfs, okay. Sure. I get that. But what the hell is up with dwarfs catching ’tude at being called midgets? It’s practically a compliment.

Happy Thanksgiving, Internet.