Let me start out by saying that I love clothes and I love to shop. Yes, this can be very challenging for a shortgirl on so many levels and I will explore all of them at some point. Today I’m going to touch on just one aspect of the shortgirl retail shopping experience, Why do they put the clothes up so high?!
I come from a family of shortgirl shopping divas. I learned how to shop from the original shortgirl shopping queen, my mother. She taught me how to shop and how to never pay retail for anything. If you really felt you needed it (the dress, the purse the shoes, etc.) that bad, wait a week and it would probably go on sale, and if it didn’t, it just wasn’t meant to be. She also taught me that if I bought a top I needed to make sure that I had a bottom to go with it and vice versa. You know, you buy that really cute skirt (on sale of course) and then you get it home and have nothing to go with it, ugh! Then it sits in your closet with the tags still attached for years before you finally give up and donate it to Goodwill. Moral of the story, listen to your mother.
My mother also taught me how to get a really good deal. Buy off-season and more importantly when you enter a store head straight to the sale rack, do not stop and look at all the full price stuff in the front, do not pass go, do not collect $200. Most of the sale and clearance stuff is typically at the back of the store or tucked in some obscure corner, but this woman is a master at sniffing out a deal and she has passed that on to me and I have passed that on to my own shortgirl daughter.
My daughter Monica measures up at a whopping 5ft flat. It was a red-letter day in our household when she finally made it to that holy grail of shortgirl height goals. I always hoped she’d be taller than me (4’9” and shrinking). But I digress. Monica and her friend Trina (also a shortgirl) went shopping at the outlet mall not too long ago, and after being trained by the best, she headed straight to the sale rack. Excited about finding some really good deals, her hopes were soon dashed by the fact that she couldn’t reach the rack that was hovering a good 2 feet above her head! Why, why, why do they do this? Especially in the petite section where you know, that’s where the shortgirls are going to go. Not only couldn’t she reach the rack, but she also couldn’t see what was on it. There are plenty of shorter racks in the store that could have been used. But she’s resourceful and managed to come home with bags of bargains, but it wasn’t easy.
I have been faced with this very same situation just about every time I embark on a shopping expedition. I’ve pulled clothes off hangers where they have landed on my head or the floor. I’ve used hangers to try and “lift” overhead garments down to my level. I’ve climbed up those “for employee use only ladders” and of course asked for help, usually as a last resort. I need to get one of those grabber things, now that would be fun. Shopping for a shortgirl can be frustrating and if you are a serious shopper you know that while wearing 3-inch heels would help in this situation, it’s really not that practical. Moral of the story, listen to your mother, head for the sale rack and never lose your sense of humor.
Short but mighty, shortgirls rule!