Monday, July 11, 2011

885 Men Who Shop Like Girls

885 Men Who Shop Like Girls

Ever take a 13 or 14 year old girl shopping?  They treat department stores as a starving man or woman treats an all-you-can-eat buffet.

It can take her 20 minutes to decide on the color or pattern or size of a t-shirt.  It can take an hour to decide on the tightness or looseness or height above or below the knee of a skirt.

And makeup?  If you’re her ride, bring a book.

Even on checkout, they’re still debating and still asking and still doubting and still wondering “maybe I should have taken the blue one instead of this.”

Well, believe it or not, there are guys like this, too, usually -- but not always -- skipping the makeup part, or most of it.

Most guys don’t think thus:  “Do these shoes go with my silver-grey jeans?”  “Is the medium too tight and the large too loose?”  Most guys need a shirt or a tie or a pair of pants.  They walk in, they pick things, they buy them, they walk out.

Not men who shop like girls.
“I’m going to try on all eight of these t-shirts again.  Sorry I’m taking so long.”

If they were there to pick up a present for their wife or girlfriend, they’d shop like real men.   “Okay, it’s a nice ring.  I’ll take it.”  Over and out.

But a watch for themselves?  The legit questions are “where do you get batteries?”  Or “how do you set the calendar?”  But NOT “can I wear a brown strap with a blue blazer?”  Or can I wear a gold tone watch with silver bling?”

These are the same guys who study logos on baseball hats and ask “Is that ‘NY’ the Mets or the Yankees?”  These are the same guys who want to know the difference between Barbasol and Gillette facial cleanser.  These are the guys who actually USE facial cleanser instead of plain old soap.

This doesn’t mean they don’t BUY soap.  They do.  Vast quantities of soap and shampoo.  But first, they have to open and smell a dozen different fragrances.

Take the lavender, fella.  Make you smell like a British call girl.

While they don’t hit the makeup counter, this kind of man IS likely to buy lip gloss (“My lips chap easily.”) That’s another color-size-fragrance debate.  And sometime, they buy nail polish for their toes, something we don’t get to see -- but THEY know it’s there.  (“Do you think green is too showy?”)
(“If no one can see the polish but you, you’re the only one who can answer that question accurately.  But ‘yes’ is probable.”)

A shopping formula for frustration.  And even more in a grocery than a department store.  Can you imagine looking through and squeezing two dozen tomatoes to find the “right” four of them?

Shrapnel:

--Friend and colleague Dianne Stanciel has written a moving and important posting on the conditions of race relations in America.  A link to her site is in the column at the right of the page.  But to save you the trouble of having to locate it (it’s next to the top, but some folks have trouble) here is another link that requires nothing more than for you to click.

--Betty Ford: she was a healer and special.  Special because she was so ordinary, so open about her problems and yet so public.  As was her husband the President.

--Nancy Grace makes Rush Limbaugh look positively scholarly.  And she’s the one with all the degrees.  At least Rush has no acknowledged children, so the blood line stops with him.
--
COMING ATTRACTION:  Wednesday, 7/13/11:  Rupert Murdoch’s “real” Parents?

I’m Wes Richards.  My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®
Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com.
© WJR 2011

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