An Underserved Demographic Needs Recognition and Help in Idaho

Living in Idaho is wonderful. There’s beautiful scenery, excellent adventures, and friendly people. There is one big drawback to living in Idaho, height challenges. The average height for a woman in Idaho is just over 5’4” and for men 5’10”.

Shorter Than the Average Height in Idaho? Good Luck

Living as a person of diminutive stature, I live creatively. For chairs and benches that are too deep, I use pillows behind the back or sit farther forward so my feet touch the floor, resulting in great posture and core-strengthening exercise. Driving is easy when the seat is pulled all the way forward, the steering wheel tilts and the pedals can be brought up toward my feet. Folded step stools are peppered discreetly in almost every room of my home. But there is one place I have yet to find a workaround. The grocery store.

I can’t even reach the back of the 2nd to top shelf, much less the top shelf. Not stocking the top shelf is not viable, I know. How many more square feet would each store need if they didn’t stock on the low shelf for all the people who couldn’t bend down or the top shelf for the vertically challenged?

How to Best Assist the Grossly Underserved Undertall Demographic?

Climbing the 8ft shelves is frowned upon since a whole shelf falling over could result in injury and loss of stock. Sure, there could be step stools placed throughout stores for people to use to reach the top shelf, if the stores want endless lawsuits from people falling off of them. Oh, a reaching arm apparatus to obtain items out of reach you say? I foresee a concussion caused by a falling jar of spaghetti sauce in the future. This is an instance where humans are required.

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Perhaps the employees who aren’t being hired for check-out register duties can gain employment in another department. They can be hired to put away products that have been errantly placed in the wrong spot on the shelves with a secondary assignment of assisting shoppers who need help.