Pluggers by Rick McKee for August 18, 2022

As my plugger wife likes to say, “I’m not short, I’m fun size!”

To irritate old folks the local grocery puts the bran flakes on the very top shelf.

I’m vertically challenged too!

Yes, pluggers tend to lose a little height with age and need to be careful using a ladder. A plugger should walk softly and carry a long stick.

Pluggers are short?

Vertically challenged.

That is what Step Stools are for ;-)

My mother told me to grow tall so I could reach the top shelf. I’m 6’ 1" and still need a step stool on occasion.

Kinda makes you wonder how the stuff got up there in the first place.

As I tell my wife, she’s not short, just vertically challenged. When she neeeds something out of her reach, she says “Hey, tall man walking …”

I’ve lost about an inch and a half, but can still reach the top shelf.

That’s why plugger wives (mine is 4’11”) have tall plugger husbands

The top shelf seems to get higher as you get older.

As a tall plugger, I help the short pluggers get the stuff on the high shelf.

So far I have only lost 1/2", but then I went and broke my shoulder – which has hindered my reach more than the loss of 1/2".

No problem in my house, I’m the long arm of the law

Even the man-pluggers… they’re tall enough, but their bellies prevent their arms from reaching!

I’m gettin’ there.

Being “not tall” (I’m not short, but I’ve lost height) can be advantageous sometimes. At my local dollar store, the sugar in the usual sacks was out, but with my little eye I did spy on the shelf below some plastic sacks with sugar. A couple of minutes later, I heard one of the employees, who was looking at the “usual” sugar shelf, regretfully tell a customer they were out. I caught up with the customer and showed her where the “unusual” ones were. I then told the cashier that if he’d go back and pull those bags forward (a task I couldn’t do myself because of my broken back), people would be able to see them. I’ve rarely had anyone thank me so profusely for such a small thing! (I assume they were getting complaints from people who wanted to buy sugar and couldn’t find any). He had helped me several times in the past, so I was glad for a chance to help him.

I am 5’1" and have been for decades and rarely can reach anything. I do know how to knock packages off of shelves in stores (non-breakable items only). I can move things on the top shelf of my closet with two sticks. (I am lazy and hate to climb up and more recently as we age and husband is home with me all time – he gets upset that I will fall and hurt myself if I climb up on anything.)

Husband is 5’6" so not really much help.

When I decorate the Christmas tree I have to remember to decorate more than a wide strip around the tree – climb up and do the top and bend down and do the bottom.

Husband gave in and convinced me to ruin our “colonial revival” decorated living room (he decorated it) to buy a smallish, big TV as we are not going on our weekly (since Nov 1973) movie dates due to Covid. He went around the house to find a chair for me to sit in while watching movies. He found the only chair in the house which when I sit in it my feet reach the floor – unfortunately I have since found that it is also the second most uncomfortable chair in the house. (My chair at kitchen table is the most and I store my one step under the table and use it to put my feet on.)