Most teens grow an inch or two during their growth spurts -- mine were typically measured in half-feet. The worst was the summer between my sophomore and junior years of high school, when I went from 4'11" to 5'10" in just three months. That was probably the most pain I've ever experienced in my life. I have permanent stretch marks on my torso from my body expanding faster than evolution ever intended.

And it made shopping for clothes a total party, especially since my waist didn't expand along with the rest of my body. Ask a Walmart worker for jeans in a 32 waist and a 38 inseam -- they'll just shake their head and walk away. Partly because they work at Walmart, and are not super helpful to start with, but also because you may as well be asking the impossible. See, I quickly learned that when they say "clothing for tall women," they mean 5'8", not 6-foot-plus. And since The Man still insists that we not walk around naked in polite society, I was forced to either make my own clothes or wear men's clothing. That's right, you could have naked giantesses wandering around right now if not for the stupid government. Write your congressman.

That's just the start. When I say I'm flexible, I mean I'm basically a contortionist. Martin Riggs escaping from that strait jacket in Lethal Weapon 2 is amateur hour stuff. As I mentioned earlier, I'm WNBA tall, yet I can twist and screw myself (not that way ... as far as you know) until I can fit inside a small suitcase. One time, I slid myself inside a tuba case simply because my friends dared me. They closed the top, locked it up, and applauded. Unfortunately, they didn't think to immediately open it and let me out, because I came within seconds of getting thrown into a bus along with the other luggage. I guess what I'm saying is: step up your game, Riggs. You're embarrassing yourself out there.

Warner Bros.Mel Gibson needs to be locked in a tuba case, is what I'm getting at.

I may not be able to stretch around the block, but at times, it is like a power. Thanks to my knack for dislocation, I have never actually broken a bone, despite being in multiple situations where I absolutely should have. In college, I was in a nasty car accident that should've cost me my lower leg. However, my knee simply dislocated, and my floppy leg survived fully intact. But while extreme dislocation and flexibility is good fun, helpful in tough situations, and more than a little kinky when you're in the right mood, you have to remind yourself that some things in life are actually painful to other people. When I see an athlete on TV tear their ACL, everybody in the room cringes except for me. Suddenly I look like some sociopathic, inhuman monster. It strangely does not help when I start twisting myself into a pretzel by way of explanation.

That's Garry Turner, holder of the Guinness World Record for stretchiest skin. Obviously, his is an extreme case if it can get him into the record books, but if he's the Michael Jordan of EDS, then I'm at least the Scottie Pippen. I (and other EDS folks) can manipulate ourselves like that because our skin lacks the collagen necessary to provide the structure and solidity found in regular skin. In fact, if we don't know our limits and stretch too far, we could tear the skin clean off. Though imagine the looks on your friends' faces when you say "check out this trick I can do" and then pull half your arm-skin off right in front of them.

KatarzynaBialasiewicz/iStock/Getty ImagesTa-da!

My skin isn't just stretchy though -- it's also pliable. Remember how you would roll a wad of Silly Putty over the Sunday newspaper and make a copy of that week's Beetle Bailey, because for some reason you needed more Beetle Bailey in your life? My skin is sort of like that. Pinch it, and it will keep your finger indents for several minutes. Press a gingerbread man cookie cutter onto it, and I will have a snazzy new gingerbread man tattoo. Slap my ass and the cheek will look like Andre the Giant got lusty.

I trip over everything, run into doors, get impaled on every table edge that crosses my path, and have slammed my fingers in so many car doors that it's a wonder they're not permanently crooked. I'm terrified of running into one of those sobriety checkpoints. Even when stone-cold sober, those things are a terrible ordeal for people like me. Walk in a straight line? No thank you, officer. Stand upright on one foot? What are you, insane? Touch your nose with alternating fingers? Mind if I just poke myself aggressively in the eye with alternating fingers, instead?

lisafx/iStock/Getty Images"Say the ABC's backwards? Nobody can do that, officer."

And what's more fun than being ultra clumsy? How being ultra clumsy and nearly blind? Imagine Daredevil, only without any heightened senses. So like ... just blind, basically. That's me. Debate continues as to why this happens with EDS sufferers, though it's likely either because of the lack of focusing muscles in my eyes, or a misfire in the occipital lobe of the brain. It's intermittent, too. My eyesight is so bad that I pretty much see the world in 2-D. And then sometimes I don't -- it's like someone stealing your 3-D glasses halfway through the movie. When driving, I have to memorize the shape and size of every vehicle in front of me so I don't accidentally rear-end them when my eyes flip out. Because if I do, and I get out of my car all stumbling and poking myself in the eye, I win a not-free, no-expenses-paid vacation to the drunk tank.

SamuelEDS94/Wiki Commons Pro-Tip: Say you can just dislocate your wrists to slip through the cuffs for a complimentary tasing and solitary cell.

A not-insignificant portion of my daily regimen simply goes toward not falling apart like a Jenga Tower built by a drunk. Because my tendons and ligaments are more pulled taffy than rubber band, my muscles don't hold my skeleton in place so much as I do. Very early on, I learned to memorize every detail of the K'Nex set that is my interior, since an unexpected cough or sneeze when my guard is down could easily dislocate a rib or five.

You know what requires your guard being down? Sleep. Whenever I rise to greet the day, I typically find I'm all over the place. Literally. You know that scene from The Godfather where the guy wakes up next to a horse's disembodied head? Imagine that, only it's your own arm, dangling helplessly inside its baggy skin jacket until you unceremoniously pop it back into place. That's my routine every morning: stretching, flexing, and reassembling myself into something resembling an actual person instead of a Blue Light Special T-1000.

The most common reaction, though, is not reacting at all. A lot of medicines, particularly the morphine and opiate derivatives that help manage pain, simply have no effect on EDS patients. I don't feel Vicodin, which would've been awesome to know before recruiting it to battle a gnarly case of E. coli. And if I catch poison ivy, it puts the lotion on the skin, but the lotion doesn't do shit. A friend mine also has EDS. She doesn't react to the anesthetic lidocaine, and if you've never gone to the dentist and stayed awake feeling absolutely everything, you lose the right to complain. Also, the epidural they gave her during the birth of her daughter did absolutely nothing.

Admittedly, it's hard to think of a good use for that superpower. Maybe there's like a drug-themed villain who puts all the other heroes to sleep, and it's up to the EDSquad to take the Mighty Morphine Power Ranger down?