A Page 1 article in today's Wall Street Journal describes an extravagant bachelor party for a Fidelity Investments trader that was held in March 2003. I am not particularly given to reading about the excesses of the upper classes. This is perhaps a defense against bouts of jelousy.
What caught my attention in this account, however, is that the expenses for this party included hiring a dwarf. The dwarf in question, Danny Black, is the part-owner of Shortdwarf.com which rents dwarfs for rates that start at $149 per hour. Mr. Black is quoted as saying, "Some people are just into lavish dwarf entertainment."
I am pleased to report that I am not among that group of people. I did not have a bachelor party when I was married but, if I had, I am absolutely certain that it would not have occurred to me to hire a dwarf for it.
In the interest of full disclosure, I wish to report that I have more than a passing interest in the subject of dwarfs. At 5 feet 5 inches, I am below the average height for American men which is at present about 5 feet 9 inches. The standard deviation for height is just under 3 inches. For those of you who have forgotten everything you might ever have known about statistics, the standard deviation is a measure of dispersion from the mean. To keep things simple (since my concern is not mathematical in its origins), roughly 68% of men will be between 5 feet 6 inches and 6 feet in height. My height places me within 2 standard deviations from the mean. In practical terms this means that when I stand among a group of men, I cannot see anything.
My height has presented few problems. Once when shopping for a new pair of blue jeans I discovered a store that had sorted them by inseam with the shortest ones on the top shelf. Now, this shelf was not at eye-level. In fact, I was unable to reach the jeans that were in my size. I concluded that the jeans had been organized by a person of average height since both the very short and the very tall were similarly inconvenienced. Beyond clothes-shopping and getting a good seat at the movie theater, however, falling outside one standard deviation from the mean has not presented any serious problems in my life.
Article comments
1 - Dave Nalle
I don't know what Mr. Black does for his $149 an hour, but I imagine it consists of a lot more than sitting around being short. My guess is that he's likely something like a dwarf MC and hired for his entertainment value. And if he's not entertaining he's not going to get referrals and the business won't be a success.
Shortdwarf.com appears to be a dwarf talent agency which hires out dwarfs for all sorts of entertainment purposes, based on their talents, including acting, modeling and various other amusements.
Dave
2 - Victor Plenty
Clients had better be nice to their dwarfs, or at least hope the dwarfs have never read "The Vengeance of Hop-Frog."
As for me, I am not a likely client for such businesses, although I might be willing to pay $149 per hour to have dwarves at my party. But then dwarves are notoriously unavailable for work as entertainers.
Okay, that's probably enough obscure literary references for one comment.