My Birthday Present

Ever since I was a small boy I had asked for a midget of my very own. I asked for one just about every year, except for my sixteenth birthday, when I asked for a truck. I didn’t get the truck but I did get a good pair of walking shoes.

I asked my wife for the midget again this year. She told me, “I’ll see what I can do.” This was the same thing my parents used to tell me when they knew they had no chance of getting me what I wanted.

The morning of my birthday I waited at the kitchen table eating breakfast, certain I would not get what I asked for.

My wife got up from the table. “Close your eyes,” she said.

I did.

I heard her walk away and struggle with something. It sounded heavy as she carried it across the kitchen, grunting with each step. “Keep your eyes closed,” she said.

She came up to the table and dropped my present with a thud. “Okay. You can open your eyes now.”

I did.

In front of me was a large brown cardboard box. On each side were five evenly spaced holes. I looked at the box for a while, unsure of how to react until I glanced at my wife. She smiled at me and I knew she had come through. I tore open the box and there, in the far corner, was my midget.

“Where did you find him?” I asked while my midget and I looked at each other.

“eBay,” she said. “I didn’t think you would mind if he was used.”

“No. Not at all.”

He was a good-looking midget, not a grumpy one that scowled a lot and looked like he’d run away from the circus. It was a real happy-to-be-here midget. I picked him up and set him on the floor.

“Can I have a drink of water?” he asked.

I gave him his water, which he drank quickly. He handed the glass back to me.

“So,” he asked, his voice sounding less hoarse, “where do I sleep?”

I had wanted a midget for so long that I hadn’t given much thought to what I would do when I finally got one. I pondered this for a moment. “You can sleep in the sweater drawer if you’d like.” I thought it would be better than sleeping in the drawer where I keep my blue jeans.

We walked to the bedroom and I showed him the drawer. It was low to the ground and half-full of fluffy sweaters. I thought it would be pretty comfortable. My midget got in and tried it out. “It will work,” he said. I detected a lack of enthusiasm in his answer, though he kept smiling at me.

I knew we were going to be fast friends. Just me and my midget.

After getting him settled in we sat on the couch and watched a rerun of Fantasy Island.

“I don’t care for the way Tattoo is treated,” he said at the end of the show. I made a mental note to never ask him to run up a bell tower to call out approaching planes or any other mode of transportation.

After the show we decided it would be a good time to make lunch. I asked him what he wanted and he said he wanted pancakes. I thought that sounded good so I made up a batch. We both had short stacks.

After that he wanted to go out, and I was more than happy to oblige as I wanted to show him off to my friends.

So we went for a drive to visit my friend Josh, who had also long wanted a midget of his own.

On the ride to Josh’s place, my midget started to get fidgety.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“My seatbelt’s rubbing my neck wrong,” he said, pulling on the strap.

“Is there a right way for a seatbelt to rub you?”

He laughed for a moment and then turned completely serious. “Yes,” he said, “but I don’t know you that well.”

I decided not to push the subject.

When we arrived at Josh’s, I realized he had done more thinking about getting a midget than I had. His living room walls were adorned with framed posters of Verne Troyer decked out as Mini-Me. In his bedroom a stuffed Ewok rested by his pillow. In the bathroom he had a urinal that sat on the floor. It all seemed very considerate.

Josh started asking me about midget ownership. “What does he eat? How often do you have to take him for walks? Do elevators really smell different to them?” This went on for a while longer until my midget could take no more and walked out.

I followed him.

I walked with him to the car and leaned down. I tried to console him, but he shrugged me off and continued walking.

“What’s wrong?” I asked him.

“Like you don’t know,” he replied as his small shoes pounded the sidewalk at a furious pace. I had to walk faster to keep up.

“Would you like to be alone?”

“I would like you to stop bothering me.”

“What did I do?” I asked.

He stopped abruptly and I tripped over him.

“I’m a midget,” he said, waving his tiny arms around his head.

“Yes.” I was wondering where this was going.

“I’m leaving,” he finally said.

I just looked at him.

“Where are you going?”

“Home,” he said as he walked back to the car. “I need you to take me back to the post office.”

“But you’re my birthday present.”

“Happy friggin’ birthday. Now I’m going home.”

I drove him back to my place, packed him back into his box, taped it up, marked the box “return to sender,” and took him to the post office.

That was two weeks ago. And I’m still not sure if I’m ready to move on.

The other day I was looking for midgets on eBay when there on my monitor, about halfway down the page with two days of bidding left, I stumbled across my midget. But he was overpriced and I couldn’t afford to buy him back.

Below him I found another.

“Half-price human,” the description read.

It just didn’t feel the same. I deleted my bookmarks that listed midgets and shut down the computer.