'Matter of Laugh or Death,' a humor column

By Bill Dunn

Interesting observations on this thing we call life

(appearing each week in the Republican-American newspaper, Waterbury, CT)

SHOPPING SEASON BATTLE OF THE SEXES

(Note: this was published on Fri, November 25th) 

Today is Friday, the day after Thanksgiving. Although yesterday was a major holiday on the calendar, today is an even bigger national holiday: The Busiest Shopping Day of the Year.

This holiday dates back to colonial times, and was even enshrined in the United States Constitution. The Second Amendment reads in part, “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the fourth Friday in November shall be designated The Busiest Shopping Day of the Year.”

If you are reading this column on Friday morning, I can say with certainty that you are a man. This is because every woman in America is not home right now. They all left their homes way before dawn this morning, way before the newspaper delivery person even thought of waking up, to be at the mall as soon as the doors opened to take advantage of the “super colossal” holiday savings available today only between 5 a.m. and 7 a.m. (As opposed to the identical holiday savings available from 7:01 a.m. today through 10 p.m. on December 24th, a period that has the very different marketing designation of “spectacular fantastic.”)

By the way, if you are reading this column on Friday morning and you are a child, you mistakenly turned to this page while looking for the comics. (Either that, or you are the 9-year-old child of my brother-in-law, Eddie the Tycoon, and you were looking for the weekly Wall Street wrap-up report.)

Anyway, today is the one day in the entire year when the differences between the sexes is most obvious. Some people might think a day involving a sporting event—such as Super Bowl Sunday—would be the one day of the year when the differences between the sexes is most obvious. But this is not true. Super Bowl Sunday has evolved into a cultural phenomenon with women just as likely as men to get excited about Super Bowl parties.

Granted, at those Super Bowl parties only about 10-percent of the women can name one of the teams playing in the game (“The Yankees! No? How about the Celtics?”). On the other hand, at those parties 110-percent of the men can name both teams playing in the game. 110-percent, you ask? Well, the guys get 10 bonus points because there’s always someone at the party who can name the teams that played in every Super Bowl dating back to the Packers vs. the Chiefs in 1967. Plus you can earn another 5 points if you mention that this first game was not referred to as the “Super Bowl.”

The reason today demonstrates the stark difference between the sexes is because women view Christmas shopping as an exciting social activity. Whenever women get together, there’s always someone who can name the best Christmas sale for each year dating back to Macy’s vs. Gimbel’s in 1934. Plus you can earn another 5 points if you mention that the doors did not open for this particular sale until the ridiculously late hour of 8:00 a.m.

Men view Christmas shopping as a bothersome chore, similar to flossing their teeth or cleaning the gutters (not to be confused with flossing the gutters). Also, since Christmas Day is still a month away, men know there are at least three-and-a-half weeks of prime procrastination time before we are finally forced to address this bothersome chore.

Since only men are reading this column right now, I have one request: Guys, please throw away this section of the newspaper before your wives get home. If they ever read this sexist nonsense, I’m in big trouble.

©2005