I didn’t care that I was small for my age.  My pal, Steve was even shorter…

When I was 10 years old, my mom took me to see Dr. Shteiner, a short, squat German Jew who pulled out these charts that showed how I compared to others my age.

Read more: The Mystery Pills My Mom Gave Me (Snap Judgement Podcast, April 2026)

“You’re so far behind your peers…”

“No, I’m not, Mom.  I’m right there with ‘em.”

“You vish you were taller, like ze other kinder?”

“No, I’m okaaaaay…”

“But zey make fun of you, no?”

“Noooo.”

Like my mom, Dr. Shteiner had the best of intentions… But he had a theory to go with them.  He’d been prescribing these little white pills to old ladies with low bone density.  He figured if I ate those same pills, along with a high protein diet, I’d begin to close the gap. He seemed to want to change the fact we Jews are often a little people.

I now wonder if maybe Dr. Shteiner was suffering from a post-Holocaustal fear of being unable to blend in with the master race… Or maybe he was just slurping from that old melting pot metaphor rather than embracing the funky, stitched together tapestry that better defines America today. 

Whatever. It was decided I’d get the “scrip.” And because I was a compliant kid, I took those pills every day for the next five years. So did Steve. Our mothers were colluding.

And we’d visit Dr. Shteiner every few months and look at the chart. I was never able to close the gap, but my mom was happy, cause maybe I wasn’t falling further behind.  

There were some positive developments in my life that may have had something to do with those little white pills. In 8^th grade, we played a game called “Throw-the-Guy-Off-the-Mat.” Steve and I, still the shortest in our class, teamed up: we’d fix our attention on the biggest lunk, spring at ‘em like a couple of mini-Sumo wrestlers, and …bye-bye. Then we’d turn our attention to the remaining prey.  We were unbeatable.  The PE Teacher said it was because of our profound will to win.

In high school, I set the freshman record for pull-ups—40 of them, and found some measure of success in gymnastics. JP said it was cause I was so little and light I had an unfair advantage, but he never explained why Steve set the freshman record for bench press at 220 pounds, and went on to place fifth in the state wrestling meet, at 105 pounds.

Halfway through college, Steve called me some with disturbing news… Turns out we’d been taking anabolic steroids all those years…. We were way ahead of Barry Bonds and Lance Armstrong. But what did this mean about my social, emotional and development, my identity? …Would I have to live my life with an asterisk beside my name?

“Never mind that,” Steve said.  “Check out the side effects:  kidney damage, shrunken testicles, gynecomastia—that’s when boys start growing boobs because of a hormone imbalance.  Steve and I both needed surgery to remove our embarrassing breast tissue… “But’s that’s not the worst of it,” he said. “We’re probably sterile!” 

Now I wasn’t ready to think about having kids, but what the hell? Why should I suffer the consequences from a decision I didn’t actively make?  And I started thinking… that happens to other people every day. Some win the genetic lottery, some lose. Some are born with opportunity and privilege, some aren’t.  Accidents happen. Some people could blend in with Hitler’s Youth; maybe Dr. Shteiner couldn’t.

When I confronted my mom, she explained that it seemed like a good idea at the time: A shorter man might face significant challenges in life… like finding a job or a life partner. Huh? In America, it’s all about competition and snatching every available advantage, right?

Well, I had to find out… if I was shooting blanks. I called the University Health Center, and they were more than willing to count my sperm; however, I’d need to refrain from sex for three days (even with myself!). And I’d need to get the sample to them in this tiny plastic container within 20 minutes of release. I will not describe the challenge of directing an… emission… into a tiny plastic vile, or my concern about the quantity I produced.  Was this normal for someone my age? Back to the task at hand: I couldn’t let the sample get too cold. Easier said than done in the dead of winter, in Michigan, with a mile walk between me and the health center.

I plodded through a fresh layer of snow, protecting what I hoped was a high motility wad of potential offspring in the warmth of my armpit, when I ran into to Cassie… I had a major crush on Cassie. She was five foot nine with cascading brown hair. She was a poet and aspiring English teacher. 

“Hey! Watcha got there?”

“Nothing.”

“No really, whatcha got?”

“It’s kind of a long story.”

“I got time.  Let’s grab a cup of coffee.  It’s freezing out here.”  To this day, I don’t understand why I didn’t ditch the sperm for a cup of coffee with Cassie, or why the rain check was never redeemed…

Well, it turns out, I had swimmers! And fast forward a few years and I had a couple of kids who have grown into healthy adults– without the help of Dr. Shteiner. My son and daughter are both 5’11”, which may have had something to do with the height of their Swedish mother. 

And for the record, no one has ever complained about the size of my testicles.