Eighteen years ago, when we remodeled our kitchen, we made the counters a few inches higher than normal because of our height. And because I am still tall, although not as tall as I used to be, I’ve had a little trouble with my back from bending over the very low sink we have here in our rental condo in Florida. Not a huge problem, but noted.

So why is it that, when everything else here is so low, the mattress of our bed is so high? It took us days to figure out how to climb into it gracefully. In fact, we moved a little stool from the kitchen (where there are some high cabinets to go with the low sink) to help us.

One night, I dropped my bottle of eye drops on the floor when I was in bed and, when I reached down to get it, I lost my balance and was about to land on the floor head-first until I grabbed the night table and pulled myself up. No kidding, I thought I was a goner.

So I conducted a survey. Of the people I know here, all of the beds in their rented condos are so high that they are hard to climb into. And that’s in a place where most of the people are too old to climb into anything.

I don’t get it.