The Advice Column

[Sue Sue Applegate]

My best friend and neighbor has five brothers 6'4" and up. I cannot imagine having to feed, clothe, and corral 5 Colemans.
I wouldn't make it through day one!

She said that when they were growing up, her mother spent half the day just preparing breakfast and dinner, cleaning up the kitchen, and marketing. Luckily, her Dad always helped prepare dinner and do some of the washing.

"Loping gazelle" is my favorite phrase for his wonder years, from about 7-14.

Now that he is doing standup and emceeing comedy showcases, he gets introduced as "The Giraffe." But he loves it!

[JackFavell]

Ha! Your comment on the top shelf made me laugh!

At 5' nothing, I keep things like sundae cups, colored margarita glasses or the several thousand wine glasses we got for our wedding on the top shelf. We don't drink most of the time so it's no problem NOT to reach them. The same goes for the serving bowls I use for Thanksgiving and Christmas, they hide up there all year long, just showing through the glass doors for a spot of color in the kitchen.

I have one of Alice's little tiny chairs in the kitchen for my step stool, it's small enough to fit in a corner, though what I wanted was one of those now extremely expensive folding 3 step ladders that you can keep in a nook, but that I never got because it was impractical to pay so much money. My one big gripe is that the little chair is the perfect spot for my husband to drop whatever he doesn't want to take to the basement, or not put in the pantry around the corner. I feel like yelling, "Hey, I USE that chair pretty much every day! HELLO!" but then I just take the dog food bag or the hammer, or the empty six pack of bottles left over from the 4th of July and put them away, cause it's ridiculous to make a big fuss over it.

[knitwit45]

As another 'vertically challenged' person, I hear ya! I found a small wooden stool with a handle cut out in the middle of the seat, at Dollar General, about 5 years ago. That little stool is the difference between waiting for some one to come over, or dragging a kitchen chair to the cabinets, or just picking it up and placing it where I need it. It is solid wood, cost $5.00, and is the best 'tool' I have.

When I go to the grocery store, invariably what I want or need is on the top shelf...at the very back. I just wait until a tall person comes along, and then ask if I can 'borrow' them for just a minute...always works!

[JackFavell]

Ha! I SO hear you, Nan! I do the same thing, as it always turns out that Andrew has vanished just when I need him to reach something down for me. I try to pick someone handsome, just in case he comes back, so he won't leave me to my own devices anymore.

[rohanaka]

When I go to the grocery store, invariably what I want or need is on the top shelf...at the very back. I just wait until a tall person comes along, and then ask if I can 'borrow' them for just a minute...always works!

Oh me, I hate when that happens. That is when I actually MISS my retail management days (wayyyy back in the 80's when I was a shoe store manager) We used to have this big long STICK that had a flat metal plate on the end of it and at the bottom of the plate (just before the part that fit onto the wooden handle) was a sort of "ledge" that stuck out for things to rest on. (I cannot believe it.. ha. but I GOOGLED shoebox pole.. and HERE you go.. a perfect picture of one)

http://www.carlson-store-fixtures.com/p ... fault.aspx

And so bascically.. if you wanted to get shoe boxes off of a top shelf (way up high) rather than have to climb up and down on a stool or ladder.. you could use the stick and sort of slide the metal plate under the shoe box lid and if you did it slowly enough, you could slide the box to the end of the shelf and pull it out.. and it would land on that ledge. and the metal plate would fit along the wall of the shoebox for support. And then you could move it around anywhere you wanted and put it back on another shelf. And if you were REALLLLLLLLLLLY careful you could grab the bottom box in a STACK of shoeboxes that were all on the same TOO high shelf.. and move more than one box at a time.

(ha.. I think my record was six boxes.. anything more and it would get too high (or heavy) and you'd lose balance. Woo HOO.. I used to have the neatest stockroom around because I loved to "tighten" shelves just for the fun of getting to see how many I could move all at once from one place to the other. Ha.. probably the only time in my life I was ever ORGANIZED because it was FUN instead of because I had to be)

But the POINT of all this is.. ha.. I can't tell you how many times when I have been out shopping and not been able to reach stuff.. that I found myself MISSING my little shoebox tool.. alas. (I wonder if I could invent one of those things on a collapsing or telescopic pole.. so you could carry it in your purse!! YEAH!! I can see it now.. millions of dollars.. all coming my way.. ha. (hey.. maybe I could go on that show, "The Shark Tank" to get my start up money, ha)

OH wait.. dadgum.. somebody beat me to it..

http://www.hangups.com/HiReachPoles.html

OH well.. back to the drawing board... HA.

PS Jackie, I have one of those collapsing stepstools but it only has ONE step. It was not nearly so expesive as those larger ones that you mentioned, but it DOES work if I don't have to climb TOO high. I bought it to take some senior citizen folks from church to a funeral that was out of state and I needed something to help a couple of them be able to get in and out of my van) It has a nice step on it and a handle that comes up about mid-thigh high) so you can grab onto it sort of like a rail as you step up or down.. it is VERY sturdy.. but again.. it only has ONE step (so it just depends how high you have to reach whether it would help much.)

OH, and your little chair sounds like it gets the same treatment as the top of my little "mini" deep freeze (which stands in the corner of the kitchen). But better stuff gets stacked there than the top of my kitchen table I suppose.. sigh..

[JackFavell]

Hey! We used to have a long pole someone had created to pull hangers off the wall, it was basically a hook on a pole. And at another job, we had a long arm grabber, with pincers on the end of it, so you could grab ahold of something (not too heavy) and then pull it down to within arms reach. I've found the long arm grabbers, but none of them have sturdy long poles, and the pincers are so flimsy that it would be a risk to pull a can of tomato sauce off of a shelf. I love your idea, you could actually invent one that's round and curved in order to support the weight of a can on it....

[rohanaka]

woo hoo, Jackie.. I like your spin on that pole idea. Ha. I say we go for it.. if we come up with our own design.. maybe we won't get in TOO much trouble with the patent people, ha. I can see it now.. Jackie and Ro on the next episode of the Shark Tank. HA.

[JackFavell]

More likely I Love Lucy!

[rohanaka]

hahahahahahahaha.. true.. all true! (alas)

[RedRiver]

I get drafted for top shelf duty in the library. Not only am I on the tall side, I have arms like an orangutan! Since I'm always at the library anyway, this is a nice way to be of service.

[JackFavell]

Where are you when I need you, Red?

[RedRiver]

Mystery/suspense, mostly.

[CineMaven]

Gee Red...I thought you'd say Chicago.

[RedRiver]

Have a hot dog!

[charliechaplinfan]

Since I started this thread about the gift from my neighbour of the Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy, I have to confess that I read hte first book. Shame on me, my excuse was it was so easy to pick up and down at the various places we visited, the kids and Chris would generally park me somewhere when I'd run out of steam be it 5 minutes or 15 and I could read a segment.

My neighbour was delighted when I came home but we had different opinions on it. It's a complete fantasy and the sex scenes are half the book and they aren't well written, I can't imagine how they are going to make a movie of this book it's just one bed scene after another. I won't be reading the sequels but I've done enough to keep my neighbour happy. She can't understand how I failed to be moved by Christian Grey.