Great Big World

I was mesmerized by the miniature Victorian furniture that sat in the living room behind the velvet rope that kept the crowd from touching anything. The midgets stood rigidly, looking embarrassed yet resigned. It was the 60’s and we still called them midgets.

I was eight years old when the Winnebago arrived in the Zellers parking lot up the street. Just old enough to leave the house by myself with the fifty-cent entrance fee that allowed me to climb up into the exhibit that housed the miniature couple.
I caught the eye of the female midget and realized we were exactly the same size though she was clearly a woman, not a little girl like me.

I walked through the exhibit/home taking in every detail. The miniature kitchen table and chairs, the small sized cupboards and windows. It was perfectly clean and neat and I wondered how they kept up with it all, the constant parade of paying guests.
I exited the display into the bright sunlight as an idea started to gain steam.

I raced home and tripped over my words as I told my Mother where I had been. I headed straight for my Easy Bake Oven and whipped up a batch of cardboard brownies, impatiently waiting for the internal light bulb of the oven to finish its job.

I imagined we would become great friends. I would drop by after school and share details of my day- maybe entertain them with imitations of my teachers. I would soon gain entrance to the roped off living room area, that’s how tight we would become.

I packed up the plate of perfect miniature brownies and headed back to the Winnebago. I presented them to the miniature couple as I beamed with pride.
There was an awkward silence as the woman accepted my gift. Finally she said, “ Thank-you, this is very nice but we can eat real sized food.” I was confused by this. I was desperate to make them happy and now I felt I had somehow let them down.

I returned the next day with a plate of full-sized cookies but they had moved on to the next town.