On the hunt

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On the hunt
By Bobby Neal Winters

My better half and I were out walking the other day and a question came up about one of my favorite topics, which is to say gender differences. Being outnumbered 4-to-1 by the fairer sex at my house, I’ve had ample time to observe differences in approach. However, on this occasion, it was my wife who brought up the matter.

“What is it about you men and guns?” she asked. “What do you like about them?”

In this case, even the question was illuminating. It had never even occurred to me that someone wouldn’t know.

“Well...uh...,” I began with my usual eloquence. “It’s like this. I can be way over here and something I want to kill can be way over there and I can point the gun, pull the trigger, and kill it.” I finally managed to say. “Cool, huh?”

I thought I’d made my case pretty well.

“O-K,” she replied, “I realize that.” Suddenly it didn’t seem so warm outside anymore. “But the question is why? Why do men think it is `cool’ to be able to kill something?”

That was a good question, but fortunately it was one I had an answer to. While women are busy giving birth in rice paddies so they can go back to work right away, bringing home bacon, frying it up in pan, and not letting us forget we are men, we of the male persuasion are engaged with each other in important philosophical discussions. Occasionally, we even use intelligence enhancing chemicals so that we may think deeper thoughts. I take cream and sugar with mine.

At the cost of downing gallons of this intelligence producing chemical, engaging with some of the greatest minds of our time, and even eating a scone or two, we’ve been able to create a theory that is amazing in its originality, depth, and profundity.”

“You see,” I began, “man is a hunter. And we are driven to hunt for game and bring it back to the cave.”

“Oh, really,” my wife replied. I could see she was dazzled by my brilliance. “Cave men had guns, did they?”

“Uh...not guns,” I said. She was really being annoying by coming up with these questions. “But anything that you can shoot from over here and have something fall dead over there. Bows and arrows, slingshots, crossbows, atlatls, BB guns...”

“Ok, I get it,” she said. “What about women in this theory of yours? What do we do that carries over from cave man days?”

“Oh, that’s easy,” I said. “Shopping.”

The look that I received here does not translate easily into something that should appear on the pages of a family publication, so I hurried to explain.

“Women were the gatherers of the tribe,” I said. “They went out with their baskets and gathered berries, tubers, and small game. When women came to a patch of berries that weren’t ripe yet, they noted where the berries were so they return later to gather them. They must have spent a lot of time just roaming around in the woods looking at berry bushes.

“Today this manifests itself in the following way. When you come upon something you want that costs too much, you make a note of it and come back later when it is on sale.

“It’s the same thing,” I said, feeling pretty darned satisfied with myself for clearing up one of these mysteries. However, I was not yet finished.

“All right then,” my wife replied. “Men shop too. How does that fit into your...uh...theory.” I hadn’t noticed how thin her lips could be before. I was prepared with an answer, however.

“Men shop like they hunt,” I said. “When we go into a store, it’s like hunting for deer or elk. If cave man found a deer or an elk, they didn’t wait for it to get ripe. They killed it then and there and took it back to the cave.”

“Even if it was the size of a Chihuahua?” she asked.

“Er...uh...yes,” I said. “Some of those small deer have a really good flavor.”

I thought I’d provided some good answers and was wanting to bring the subject to a close quickly, but my better insisted on returning to the original question.

“OK, Bub,”—that is her little pet name for me—“why do you need the guns? Do you shoot what you are shopping for?”

“No,” I said, “but sometimes when we can’t find what we are shopping for, we’ll just buy a gun instead.”

She looked like she was going to say something, but she didn’t. Apparently, my manly wisdom left her speechless.

(Bobby Winters is a Professor of Mathematics, writer, and speaker. You may contact him at bwinters1@cox.net or visit his website at www.okieinexilepress.com.) <o></o>

[juantoo3]

Kindest Regards, Okie!

Somehow you manage to speak to an issue near and dear to my heart, and somehow manage to avoid being bludgeoned (at least in print!). Some people, roughly half of the human race, just don't seem to understand, and perhaps never will.

Alas, the other half, among which I count myself, fail to understand the methods and motivations of the aforementioned half. I am of the opinion that half of the human race will never understand the other half, and have grudgingly consigned myself to accepting this as an inevitable reality over which I have no control whatsoever. Of life's mysteries, this ranks as perhaps the most mysterious of all.





P.S. *whisper* I understand completely what you're getting at...gotta run!

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