Living Incognito

Chapter 1
Why Not?

About three weeks ago I had a pretty typical run in with a gas station attendant. I pumped the gas and went in to get a coke, only to have to first explain that I was 18 and not a child. No I wasn’t driving my parents car, then I had to explain to him that my car had special pedals and a raised seat so I could drive. I’ve been going through explanations like this my entire life at every turn.

I was born with a genetic disorder called Bradrich’s Syndrome. A rare genetic problem named after the first girl discovered with it. The most obvious characteristic of it is my height... many of you would call me a dwarf midget although I don’t prefer that word. I am 40 inches tall and 43 pounds. To give you a frame of reference, that would put me roughly in the top of the 3 year old or the bottom of the 5 year old ranges on a child’s growth chart. Unlike the shortened characterizes in many forms of dwarfism, my body is not out of proportion. I don’t have a larger head and hips and shortened limbs like most, because my problem is a result of inhibited growth hormones from particular missing genetic markers. As a result, I didn’t go through many of the aging steps that you probably did. I didn’t loose my baby teeth and I didn’t go through puberty to develop breasts or grow hair in places like most teenagers do. Now typically girls with Bradrich’s can be given growth hormones through an injection process... didn’t work with me. I spent two weeks in the hospital when I was 11 while my body rejected the foreign substances injected to me. I am the one in a million who has an unusual allergy to the hormones. My parents and I decided not to try that again. Instead I spent the next few years trying to cut my hair and wear clothes that made me look as old as possible. It worked for the most part, I lived in a small Midwestern town, everyone knew me, aside from some chiding here and there, most people were ok with it.

Then after graduation, it came time to go to college. I decided to jump off the deep end, and moved to the city to enroll in a junior college. My mother passed away when I was in junior high, and my dad was very busy with his business, so I didn’t want to burden him anymore. I had a trust fun from when my mom died, and I took the money and with my fathers blessing headed off to the city. I came out here two months before class was to start to get myself situated, and discovered how much different people treated me here. They either thought I was a child... and I ended up embarrassing them with an explanation, or they thought because I was small I was an a helpless invalid and invariably ended up treating me as such, like a child. It seemed that I had come from being a normal, albeit small teenage girl, to being treated like a kid no matter where I went.

Then it hit me... I had always wondered what it would be like to pass myself off as a kid again. My friends always joked about it, and it always sounded interesting in a silly kind of way, but here I was, on my own, the first time in my life that I might actually be able to give it a shot...

That night, I went to a Wal-Mart down the street and for the first time in years, bought my clothes from the kids section. It turned out that I was either a size 3T or a size 4. I found some pink overalls and a Dora the explorer t-shirt. I decided to go with the size 3T because it had snaps going up the legs and I thought it added to the effect. The last thing I needed was panties. I didn’t really plan on anyone seeing them, but I figured they would help me get into character. I checked out some cute Dora and Blues Clues panties, but decided to go with some Gerber training pants. You know, the thick ones that are a little thicker “just in case” you have an accident. After drawing some looks from the checker... I think she was too embarrassed to ask questions, I took my loot and went back to my apartment. When I got there, I took a shower and handled the last bit of my transformation... I used some hair coloring to dye out my highlights, and cut my beautiful bangs... (thinking this had better be worth it.)

After I toweled off, I decided to try on my costume... I put on the whole outfit from training pants to pigtails. I couldn’t believe it... there in front of me in the full length mirror was at best a small five year old. Without my makeup and hair done, there was no sign of my real age. I would have been fooled myself. The clothes fit perfectly, and the training pants had the added effect of poofing my bottom in a cute toddler like effect.