I thought new Readers might enjoy an earlier blog (April 2013), from my Red Room site, on the joys of being short. . .

I use to dream that I am a tall, slender person–in another life–probably in another lifetime. The reality is I’m short. My Grandma was a short lady. She would tell people she was 5 feet tall–actually, she missed that height by 2 inches. My Mom is also a short lady, but she’s a bit taller than my Grandma. Mom just missed 5 feet by half an inch. I like being the tallest at 5 feet plus half an inch. It seems each generation gets a little more of the height gene.

Short people never think they’re short.  We stand tall with our perfect postures.  We have good upper body muscle tone because we’re always reaching upwards and stretching for whatever it is, that’s just out of reach on that top shelf. At least, I like to think that until I stand beside someone taller–much taller.

There are lots of advantages to being short.  I’m still trying to think of some.  My niece tells me she meets a lot of cute guys- –very helpful guys, who don’t mind reaching for stuff in those hard-to-reach places. The cute, helpful seniors are also tickled to get stuff in hard-to-reach places for me too.

The other day there wasn’t anyone around to ask for assistance, so I checked to make sure no one was looking,  grabbed the opened door of the freezer for support, stepped on the bottom shelf of the freezer and reached in the back of the top shelf for my bag of McCain’s frozen potato cakes.  What the heck–while I was nicely balanced, I grabbed a second bag. And that’s when the manager came along, grabbed me by the waist and scolded me in an exasperated tone, “Look Kid–just find someone to help you. Didn’t I warn you before not to climb the shelves?  What if you fell and got hurt or. . .” His shocked voice trailed away as he realized he was lecturing a mature woman.  I didn’t know whether to be embarrassed or flattered. At least, he set me down gently.

I hate taking my car in for its annual maintenance because I know when I get my car back, I would be spending 10  minutes adjusting the seat height, seat back and bringing the seat forward. Whenever I needed a “loaner” car from the body-shop, I would get a nice small compact that was very easy to drive–for little old ladies! To this day, my favourite loaner was a regular-size pickup truck. It was red and I sat up high. Commuting along a busy highway, I could see above and beyond other slow-moving cars. I could see obstacles ahead, unless there was something higher, like a bus or a really huge truck ahead of me.

I think, in another life, I was probably a “pickup truck”  kind of person AND a much taller person too!