Lifetime Regret

In the 1980s, one young lady issued a public pronouncement dismissing（解散） all men under the height of 1.70 meters as "handicapped". It was met with an avalanche（雪崩） of responses from virtually all unmarried women in the nation.

After making perennial（多年生的，常年的） efforts to measure my exact height, I reached the inescapable conclusion that I was permanently handicapped. Back in those days, I was a callow（年轻无经验的） young chap（小伙子） vastly capable of darling and foolhardiness（有勇无谋） , and determined to wrestle with this prejudice against men's lack of height. So by hook or by rook, I married a girl who 1.74 meters in height. Such an astonishing tour de force（绝技，精心杰作） thus achieved greatly bolstered the morale（士气，斗志） and esteem of those of us who were "handicapped".

But only after the girl was enticed into（怂恿，唆使） matrimony（结婚，婚礼） did I begin to feel my self-inflicted anguish. This over-reaction of mine not only failed to put an end to my "permanent handicapped", but also gave me lifetime regret. I was deprived of the earthly pleasure of walking with my wife in the street with my strong arm around her delicate neck because it meant that my feet would be llifted from the land that had nurtured（养育，鼓励） me, and worse still, my scared belly-button would be put on public display.

What happens now is that whenever we go out together, with my outstretched arms tightly clinging to my wife's shoulder, I'm pretty much like a monker hanging on to a wise pole, allowing her to drag me along the street ...

In excruciating（折磨人的） agony, I often ponder this:  if I could live my life again, I would never try to achieve the elimination of prejudices of any kind for the simple reason that there is a price to pay.