My Russian cousin Angus McGrowganoff was a short man and an even shorter man when he sat down.

Standing he considered himself low, never short and took offence at any such claim.

It was true, we all agreed, he did have short man syndrome. He liked to throw his weight around and try and manipulate and stand up to anyone who had ideas of being one up on him.

He became a school Principal, a small short man in a big grown up job. In this role, he could boss people around to his heart’s content. And he did. He loved to delegate, he loved to pass the buck and make sure everyone knew whatever happened was never his fault.

Being short in stature and having a short temper worked well for him. It allowed him to shirt-front anyone who crossed him. The invasion of your personal space was a tactic he used to intimidate and bully. He was good at it.

In 1987 he married Olga Rotchabitzov a small timid woman whom I am sure didn’t know what she was getting herself into. She was a very amiable woman, she had to be to put up with Angus.

Together they lived a very short life, she left him after a short time because she couldn’t stand his petty mindedness and anal attitude to washing the dishes. Angus liked everything colour coded and in short, done his way or no way.

She claimed everything about him was short. His idea of a holiday, a day away at the beach, eating out was a short trip to the nearest restaurant and every night they had in, involved a short love-making session in which Angus would insist she sing some short ditty. It was most distracting she would say.

So Angus was left a lonely man, his career was his life, his life was his career. In short, he became short lived as they found him dead one Monday morning. So we buried him in a short coffin after a rather short service in which each eulogy was shorter than the previous one.

Written for: https://lindaghill.com/2017/03/10/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-mar-1117/