Things I am too short to do

Hello splodgies! 

If you don't know me in person (in which case its surprising that you're reading my blog) you won't know that I'm quite short. 

Today I had to text my landlord to come and fix my curtains because I'm too short to do it myself. It got me thinking- sometimes this lack of height can be a real problem. So here's a list of things that being too short has stopped me from doing:

- Fixing my own curtains. Even when stood on my windowsill, I am at least 6 inches away from being able to reach. Putting one of those wheeled chairs on my windowsill seemed a bit too stupid and dangerous, even for me.

- Changing light bulbs. Even when stood on a chair. Why do all the places I've ever lived have high ceilings? In the cellar in my house the ceiling is low enough for me to touch without even standing on my tip toes.

- Reaching things on very high shelves. In the case of cupboards, I've found a way around this- when stood on a chair and brandishing a wooden spoon or a spatula, I'm often able to scoop things out of cupboards and catch them with my free hand. I have broken a cup or two in my time, and spilled drinking chocolate all over myself, but it remains a largely effective practice.

- Riding on roller coasters- or at least, it used to. Now I believe you have to be 5'1" to ride on most roller coasters at Alton Towers. And I'm a good half an inch taller than that! I remember going to Drayton Manor theme park with my family a reeeeeally long time ago and being thoroughly terrified/ enjoying Stormforce 10 (A lifeboat themed roller coaster with a log flume type finish) and then feeling very disappointed that I couldn't ride the Shockwave because I wasn't tall enough. At the time, it was supposedly "the only standing up roller coaster in Europe) 

- Stand next to other people and not look short. Not only do I look short next to people of average height, but I happen to have a number of tall friends. So next to them, the height difference is not just a few inches, but a foot and a few inches. 

- Mash potato. This might sound silly, but you need a certain amount of upper body strength to be able to mash potato, but because the stove top that I cook with is just slightly too high up for me, I have to stand on a stool to be able to get enough height to mash potato properly. 

- Hugs can sometimes be awkward if your hug-buddy is a lot taller than you- because you're just presented with a face full of chest. so you have to decide which way to turn your head so you can breathe and hope that your hug-buddy's arms don't cover your face. 

- Sometimes my very tall friend Tom likes to use my head as an arm rest. I don't see Tom very often, but we've been friends since we were about 10 or 11, so I'm used to him doing this. I don't mind very much when he does it, but when someone I don't know does it, I can find it very annoying!! Usually this only happens when I'm out at night and around drunk people. 

- Keeping up with people - I don't know if anybody else has worked this out (heavy sarcasm implied here folks, I don't know how to convey that via text) but people who have shorter legs can't take as big a pace as people who have long legs!! Proportionately speaking, my legs are quite long, but I'm so short that it doesn't seem to make any difference. Tall people just have longer strides! If walking alongside a tall friend, I usually end up take one and a quarter steps to every one of theirs. Meaning that if we both wore pedometers I'd have more steps if we walked the same distance. Bizarro!!

Are you a short person? Are you presented with daily height-related challenges? Perhaps you're a tall person and find it annoying when your short friends can't keep up with you? Let me know in the comments section :)

Today, this is me: 

See you tomorrow!

-Rosa

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