Why I am scared of Little People...

I've mentioned before that I am afraid of little people. Before you all call me a prejudiced prick (I'm not...except towards people who think the moonlanding happened, the members of the Tea Party and assholes that keep sending Farmville gifts on Facebook. And cyclists. They suck.) there is a good reason for it.

This goes back to 2003 when I went to a dinner party with some friends. Someone had brought their friend who is a "little person". I was seated next to aforementioned little person. The waiter brought us a round of drinks served in tiny little flasks and I turned to the little person and said loudly and unavoidably, "Oooh, I feel like we're in the Shire!" 
The conversation went downhill from there.

ESSIE: "You know...with the hobbits?"

LP: (blank, judgmental stare)

ESSIE: "Not that YOU are a hobbit...the flasks are hobbity."

LP: (blank stare)

ESSIE: "Or not. Maybe they aren't. I don't know anything about hobbits. Not that YOU would. Because you know...you are short."

LP: (blank stare)

ESSIE: "Not short. I mean you're special. Not in a bad way. In a good way. I mean you can do anything a normal person can do."

LP: (blank stare)

EVERYONE AT THE TABLE (blank stare). RESTAURANT EERILY QUIET.

ESSIE: "Not that you aren't normal. You are normal."

This goes on for several hours. And then it just got worse and worse. At the movies with DW, there was a little (i.e. child) little person standing next to the wall outside and I LOUDLY said, "OMG, it's a little midget". The little little person heard. Everyone else heard. I never went to the movies again. The last movie I ever saw was Batman Begins. (This is an exaggeration. I download movies illegally now. If the police ever bust me, I think I have a valid reason for doing it.)

And then it got to the point where a little person knocked on my window begging for change while I was on my way to Japansese class.

DW: "Look honey! It's a LITTLE person!"

Essie: "I know, I know!" (panicked) "Give it some money, maybe it'll go away!"

DW: "Awww, he's so cute. Roll down your window, see what he wants!"

Essie (climbing over seat into back of the car): "No! If he gets in, how are we going to get him out?"

LP: (blank stare)

I then attempted to justify my fears to DW by fabricating folklore on the Internet as to how little people steal your souls and can turn you to stone by just staring at you. I stole a lot of it from the Spanish myth of the "cockatrice", which I found out about by total accident as I was googling porn. If you don't understand why I did this, you just don't understand our relationship. At all.