The Real Proof the Unisex Movement Is a Hoax

I never really believed much in the unisex movement that began a generation ago. After all, the Bible says "male and female created He them." But just in case you still wonder about it all, I have a sure-fire way of proving to you that there is a world of difference between the sexes. Just go shopping with a woman for a day.

A woman will travel a dozen miles and spend an extra $5 on gasoline to save 15 cents on a bottle of ketchup and feel good about the experience. A man will grab a jar of Del Monte's off the shelf and never look at the price. He just knows that it is the ketchup that pours slower and that's endorsed by Michael Jordan.

A woman will spend an hour of her time (she's paid $15 per hour at work) to clip coupons which will save her $5 at the grocery store. Most men have never willingly used a coupon in their entire lives.

A woman will buy ten cans of gnu meat because it is on sale ten for $3.95, although none of her family really likes it and she probably won't use ten cans of it during the next millennium. Why? It's on sale, you silly thing!

If it is true that a woman has a gene for bargain hunting, it is also true that she has another for comparison shopping. A woman will go into a store and find an item which she likes. She will try it on and find that it fits perfectly and looks great on her. Does she buy it? Certainly not! You know better than that! The game is not over until she has gone to at least a dozen other stores searching for the same or a similar item at a better price. Six exhausting hours later she returns to the first store and the first item and makes her purchase. Her husband is exasperated, but she has only done what any normal woman would do.

A man, by comparison, will walk into an automobile show room and purchase a $30,000 truck in less than ten minutes. As long as it is not pink and has a V-8 engine and a gun rack behind the seat, he's satisfied.

I noticed something else different about women in this regard. When they get home at the end of a shopping day, they have to show off their purchases to every other woman in a mile radius, sort of like a fisherman displaying the catch of the day. I could go on, but I think you have the point.

No, you will never convince me that women are even remotely the same as men. With a Mom, a sister, a wife and two daughters, I've shopped with too many of them to ever be fooled again.

-----Phil LeMaster

Shattered Dreams?

It just shattered. No forceful blows, no errant objects slammed against it, no body tosses. I went into the kitchen one winter evening and heard a crinkling sound coming from the direction of the patio doors in our then Grayson, Kentucky home. I pulled back the curtain and was shocked to see that the glass in one door was fragmenting into a million pieces.

The glass was still in place and looked rather artistic with its mosaic design, especially when the sun caught it just right. Of course, removal was necessary, calling for a whole new set of doors; frames, hardware and all.

I was questioned by our insurance adjuster and a repairman at some length.
"What happened?" they asked.
"Nothing," I replied.
"Nothing?" They continued.
"Nothing," I said with more emphasis the second time.

Of course, I didn’t really mean nothing. Obviously, one look at the door and you knew something had happened, but you understand my answer, don't you? I mean, to the best of our knowledge, neither Teresa nor I had done anything to produce the particular problem.

That's the way life is sometimes, is it not? Difficulties and problems appear out of thin air with no obvious origin. Maybe it is a health concern we wake up with one morning. We went to bed fine, but daybreak finds us writhing in pain. We search our minds as to what caused it, but come up empty. But still the ache persists.

Or our adult child gets into trouble. We rehearse our child-rearing practices and try to find the reason, but are clueless at the end.

Or we give our employer our best efforts for a dozen years and then receive a pink slip one Friday afternoon. We try to figure out how we went so quickly from being an asset to being a liability, but no answer comes.

What do we do when our neat world of cause-and-effect breaks down? When our question "why" bounces off the walls and reverberates back unanswered?

Well, I will tell you what we did with our patio doors. We laughed at our bizarre accident, replaced the doors, and trusted God. It seemed like the sensible thing to do. Please understand the emphasis is on trusting God, not on our stoic acceptance of that which we were unable to change. He'd led us through bigger problems. I knew He could handle this one. And He did!

Panefully yours,
Phil LeMaster