Men are amused by almost any idiot thing -- that is why professional ice
hockey is so popular -- so buying gifts for them is easy. But you should
never buy them clothes. Men believe they already have all the clothes they
will ever need, and new ones make them nervous. For example, your average
man has 84 ties, but he wears, at most, only three of them. He has learned,
through humiliating trial and error, that if he wears any of the other 81
ties, his wife will probably laugh at him ("You're not going to wear THAT
tie with that suit, are you?"). So he has narrowed it down to three safe
ties, and has gone several years without being laughed at. If you give him
a new tie, he will pretend to like it, but deep inside he will hate you.
If you want to give a man something practical, consider tires. More
than once, I would have gladly traded all the gifts I got for a new set
of tires.
-- Dave Barry, "Christmas Shopping: A Survivor's Guide"
Let me tell you who the actual "front-runners" are. On one side, you have
George Bush, who is currently going through a sort of fraternity hazing
wherein he has to perform a series of humiliating stunts to win the approval
of the Republican Right....
