August 14, 2020
Dear Everyone:
I’ve always been vertically challenged.
In a word: Short.
Other possible descriptors:
Petite, diminutive, abbreviated, compact,
low-rider. Built close to
the ground. Stunted,
pint-sized, sawed-off, slight.
“Short” is as good a word as any.
A few months ago, I was in my regular grocery
store, selecting 2-liter bottles of Diet Coke.
For some reason, these are always on the top shelf, with a metal
stop in the way to prevent them from falling to the floor.
Also, to stop people from easily taking them off the shelf.
You have to be able to lift the bottle at least two inches up
over the stop before you can draw it towards yourself.
A man pushing his shopping cart, with several
young children in tow, stopped to ask if I wanted any help.
Very kind of him. As
I had just wrested free the last bottle, I placed it in my own cart and
stepped down off my folding step stool.
I thanked him, commenting that, “Everything I
need is always on the top shelf.”
Observing that I was folding the step stool and
placing it in my cart, he said: “You appear to have come prepared.”
I agreed with him and remarked:
“Well, I’ve been short for a long time.”
He laughed and continued on his way, dragged
along by very impatient offspring.
When I was in high school, I was five-feet,
two-inches tall. And I
stayed that way for many, many years.
But then, old age caught up with me and I’ve
been getting steadily shorter for some time now.
According to my latest driver’s license, I now stand straight at
four-feet, eleven inches.
Actually, that’s four-feet, eleven and three-quarter inches.
On a good day.
Now, when doing laundry, I need a stool to step
on to reach inside the dryer which rests on top of the washing machine
in what the architect fondly refers to as the “laundry closet”.
In fact, I have a stool dedicated to that very purpose.
It lives on the lower shelf of the laundry cart.
Now, when I’m working in the kitchen, I can
easily reach the bottom shelf of any of the upper cabinets.
But when it comes to the middle shelf, I have to stretch up on my
toes to grasp anything. As
for the top shelf, it’s a step-ladder or nothing.
Dragging even a small step-ladder around all
the time is annoying. I
started looking for an alternative at the Big Discount Household Items
Warehouse Store website. A
search on “stools” resulted in nearly 100 varieties, many festooned with
Disney characters. Also bar
stools, dining accessories and a whole lot of things I wasn’t looking
for.
But then I spotted a round, two-step stool that
could roll from one point to another.
It was blue and plastic.
And I realized that it was a scaled-down version of the rolling
step stools that we always had in the file rooms.
So I went over to the Big Office Supply
Warehouse Store website and quickly found the Real Thing.
Just like the ones I used to kick around (literally) in the file
rooms. It has three rolling
castors set with a spring mechanism.
When pushed, it rolls in a vaguely circular way across the floor.
Once it arrives where it’s wanted, sufficient weight placed on it
lowers it to the floor, where it rests in a very stable manner until the
weight is removed. Then it
springs back up and again rolls wherever it’s wanted.
With two circular steps, it stands 14 inches high.
Plenty to reach the top shelf.
That takes care of the kitchen.
If I need to get higher, such as to change the battery in the
ceiling-mounted smoke detector, or to replace some burned-out light
bulbs, there is an assortment of step-ladders, one inside and the rest
in the outdoor closet off the patio, the condo version of a garage.
But my best Secret Weapon is that folding step
stool that I picked up somewhere.
I keep it in the trunk of my car.
Whenever I go shopping, particularly in grocery stores, I take it
out of the trunk and place it in the top part of the shopping cart,
where small children sometimes sit.
And I’ve taken the precaution of labeling it with my name and
phone number, just in case I accidentally leave it sitting on the floor
somewhere.
It really is astonishing how many things I need
or want that are placed on the top shelves.
Or could it all be a conspiracy?
All those tall people going to that much effort just to make my
life difficult? Seems like
an awful lot of trouble for very little result.
Of course, I could wait for someone to come
along and help me (“Customer support in the frozen fish section!”)
But I’m still a Do It Yourself kind of person.
I may be an Old Lady, but I’ll go on being self-sufficient for as
long as I can.
Love, as always,
Pete
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