|
Letters From North America Back in the days of the old west, the way men expressed their manliness was to engage in a gunfight out in the middle of the street at high noon. We’ve all seen those old western movies where the good guy stares at everyone in the saloon, sheriffs office, corral.. wherever and then slowly…, slowly turns and walks with this deep sense of purpose out into the street to meet his destiny. You never, ever saw a gun fighter run out into the street. He walked with purpose, dignity, a sense of who he was and what he was about to do. Well, so much for all of that. Obviously we don’t have modem man engaging in the same type of activity in this day and time. For one thing, they’d get run over standing out in the street of any major city or town these days. People would be yelling their heads off “Get out of the street, you dang old fool.. and why are you dressed like that anyway…?” No, today’s man has to get that sense of purpose in other avenues… like the hardware store. Since I am now spending a lot of time and money (mostly money) at the local super hardware emporium, I have had a chance to observe several items of interest. Just sit in the parking lot of one of these stores and observe how men act when they get out of their cars or trucks… . Mostly trucks.. . got to have a truck for the hardware store. Anyway, these guys will hitch up their pants, obviously a throwback to strapping on their gun belts and stroll (not run) in to face their competition….hardware fixtures. Now, look at how men walk inside a hardware store. They have that same sense of purpose as they did in the 1880’s, out in the dusty street. Now, look at women. Since they don’t have that inbred sense macho, they can walk swiftly from one department to another. Men just can’t do this. It is against their very nature. Men will walk into a hardware store with a washer or something that fell out of their air conditioner.. it doesn’t look like anything they have ever seen before, they don’t have a clue as to what it is or what it is called, but they will search the store over looking for the part before they will stop a store clerk and ask for help. Hardware stores have some areas that are composed of |
||||
 |
||||
|
For questions or comments, please contact me at pperry@austin.rr.com Designed and Hosted by The Home Page Factory |
||||
hundreds of tiny little boxes and drawers with hundreds of tiny little parts. A man will open and close each drawer looking for the part he needs instead of asking if this is the right section. A woman, on the other hand, will walk right up to the nearest clerk and say something sensible like.. “Do you know what this is and do you have of these?” Now follow this… if she asks a male clerk.., he will ALWAYS know what it is, even if he has to make up a name for it…”Oh, sure , that’s a left rotator cuff rebersack…” If she asks where these are.. .she may hear “Oh, I think we’re out of those…” Now, if the clerk is a woman… what you’d hear is. “I don’t know what that is, but let’s go look over here, I think I saw some of those the other day…” It’s kind of like a man asking for directions while driving…he won’t . .but she will. Anyway, go into a large hardware store and you can feel the macho flowing from the pores of men standing around the power tool section. I mean, it’s kind of like I would imagine the gun store would have been in the old west. When the new chain saws come out each year, men who live in condo units on the 15th floor come out for a demonstration. Now, why is that? It’s a manly thing… just don’t get in the way of one of those guys after they have bought some new power tool or you could be asking for trouble. For example, if you tell some guy that his new power saw isn’t heavy duty enough.. he’s liable to square up his shoulders and ask you to step out in the street… or maybe the parking lot. Make sure it isn’t high noon.