Thank you to Silvano for telling me about this article!
Janet Meckstroth Alessi | Special to the Palm Beach Post
Story Summary
- The author, a 6-foot-2 woman, details the daily challenges of being significantly taller than average.
- Everyday environments, like airplanes, showers, and doorways, are often not designed for tall people.
This is going to make me sound every bit my age: If I had a nickel for every time someone has asked me (a) how the weather is up here, (b) if I would give them a few inches of my height or (c) whether I play basketball, I would be rich. Like retire-on-a-private-island rich.
But the comment I get more than anything?
“You’re tall!”
As if, at 6-foot-2 — nearly a foot taller than the average American woman — I hadn’t noticed.
If I ever forget, all I have to do is take a trip to a clothing store. Pants? They stop so far above my ankles you'd think I outgrew them. Jackets? Sleeves halfway to my elbows. One-piece bathing suits? Fuhgeddaboudit.
If I were 5-foot-3 like the average American woman, I could pick out 10 bathing suits at Marshalls or TJ Maxx, try them on and walk out the door with a favorite for $20. Instead, I pay over $100 plus shipping and handling for a bathing suit I pray will fit. If it doesn’t, guess who pays to return it?
I swim laps every other day, and chlorine eats through my bathing suits like moths at a wool festival. So, every three or four months, I take out a loan to buy a new one. Thank goodness for Longitude swimsuits, though. They actually fit.
Of course, I’d love to be able to try on clothes before buying them, but beggars can’t be choosers. So, I’m grateful online sites such as Long Elegant Legs, American Tall, and Long Tall Sally exist. When I was a teenager in the 1970s, if I wanted clothes that fit, I had to sew them myself.
When Sawgrass Outlet Mall opened in 1980, and I discovered that its JCPenney had a tall women’s section, I thought I’d died and gone to heaven. Had I played hooky from teaching (hypothetically, of course), that’s where you would have found me.
And when I learned Lane Bryant at the Palm Beach Mall carried tall women’s clothes, I even got a job there to take advantage of their employee discount. But, these days, I don’t know of any brick-and-mortar store with clothes for a 6-foot-plus woman. (I’m hoping someone will prove me wrong.)
Meanwhile, Big and Tall Men’s stores are everywhere. Where’s the equality?
Let’s talk shoes. I wear a 13 slim, as in 13AAA. Know how many stores carry my size? Zero. (Please! Prove me wrong!) Even online, my options are slim. Recently, I discovered that New Balance carries a couple of narrow shoes in men’s sizes, and a men’s 12 narrow fits me perfectly. So, I bought three pairs in case they’re discontinued.
I may be the only grandmother who looks at her newborn granddaughter’s long, slender feet and toes and wonders what size shoe she’ll end up wearing.