Q: I'm a tall man. At the supermarket, a very short woman asked me to get her an item from the top shelf. I complied, then asked her to pass me an item I needed from the very bottom shelf. She got huffy and accused me of being heightist. Am I?

J.N., CARINGBAH, NSW

A: I'm confused. I thought heightism worked both ways. I'm a bit heightist myself; I'm not crazy about tall or short people visiting my house because they can see things I can't see and I'd rather have no tall or short friends than dust the top of the bookshelf or clean the scummy bit under the shower soap dish. So according to my understanding of the term, you were both being heightist in that supermarket by defining each other by physical characteristics alone. That's no different to asking an Asian-looking shopper for a soy sauce recommendation, or asking a Jewish-looking shopper for the dill pickle aisle and also why did they kill Christ?

It's a shame, because this could have been a beautiful supermarket moment. You could have worked together as a formidable tall-short shopping team, avoiding all the middle shelves with their overhyped "eye level/buy level" products, and instead exploring the mysterious cheaper foodstuffs on the top and bottom shelves, the ones with weird Cyrillic brand names containing canned bear chunks.

Maybe it's time for the tall and the short to make amends, make peace, and acknowledge you are both blessed with equally wondrous abilities. You with your talent for reaching high-up things, blocking volleyball spikes and peeking out of car sunroofs to check on traffic conditions. Her with a gift for accessing low things, travelling comfortably on a Tigerair flight, and standing on her own wedding cake and being a bride-topper.

guru@goodweekend.com.au

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