Record

There were pictures put out this week on Al Gore's Internet of a meeting between the World's Tallest Man and the World's Shortest Woman. Surprise, surprise. They went viral. And this got me to thinking about most and biggest and smallest and so on and so forth. It's not just America that loves this kind of thing, but it sure does make us all pause to note something that is the epitome of its category.

For example, there are two different locations in these United States that claim to house the World's Largest Ball of Twine. Cawker City, Kansas would have you believe that they hold this distinction, while the folks in Darwin, Minnesota would beg to differ. It seems like a simple enough task to determine which one is actually the largest, but who has the time? Okay. Probably those people who would drive out of their way on a road trip across the country to take in the delights, but if you only had the chance to take in one, how could you choose? The Darwin ball is the work of just one man, while decades of additions have made the Cawker City ball even more gigantic.

Which brings us back to the Tallest Man and the Shortest Woman. Most indicators suggest that men will continue growing taller until they turn nineteen. There are plenty of twelve to fourteen year olds who are looking for that chance at a page in the Guinness Book of World Records. They've got puberty on their side. Eat right and hang from the jungle gym, and you've still got a shot. If you hoped to be the smallest anything, you've got a lot working against you. People and things don't tend to stay small. Not for very long, anyway. The smallest ball of twine, for example, would be no ball of twine at all.

And so it goes. Being the best at anything requires some measure. If there is no certification to be done, what possible good will making the assertion that this or that record continues to stand? I stalled out at five feet nine inches, so I won't find a place in the spotlight for that. There are plenty of guys who are more bald than I am. I believe that if I really want to make my mark, I've got to find a niche of my own. Thank you in advance for all the suggestions I am bound to receive, but I am reasonably certain that common sense and my wife's concern for my health will exclude me from a great many of these potential escapades. My stunt eating days, I fear, are behind me. So what's left? My ten minute per mile pace isn't going to shatter any records at this or any other age group. It will take some training, but I see where the record for most wooden toilet seats broken over one's head in a minute if forty-six. Now to find a sponsor.