Do you enjoy shopping? Especially for clothes?

How you answer the question may depend on which side of the gender fence you are on. I have not conducted formal surveys on the subject, but among the gloried differences between men and women, the attitude toward shopping must rank near the top. Men view shopping (and buying) as a business transaction. Women (most women—there may be exceptions) consider shopping as a sacred mission and buying as only incidental to the shopping experience itself.

Lacking scientific evidence, I will use myself as an example where men are concerned. Let's say I need a couple of new shirts. I go to a men's clothing store and say, "I want to see some shirts."

The salesperson directs me to the shirt rack.

"I'll take this one, and that one there," I say, walk to the sales counter, pay the clerk, gather up my shirts and drive home. The entire transaction takes maybe five minutes. Ten minutes, tops.

It's altogether different when a woman goes shopping for a shirt. First, she looks at every shirt in the store and tries on at least half of them, even those she knows she won't like, before she gets anywhere close to making a purchase. I have bought new herd sires in less time than it takes an average woman to buy a blouse.

Early in our married life, my wife and I practiced togetherness in most things, including clothes shopping. I would accompany her to the mall, browsing first one store and then the next, where she examined garments as if she worked for the Consumer Product Safety Division. She would spend hours looking at and trying on clothes, and wind up buying a pair of anklets.

For awhile, this was sort of entertaining, but it was also tiring. Shopping, the way my wife did it, was hard work. So, I adopted the practice of buying a magazine, finding a comfortable bench in the mall atrium and reading while she shopped. She stopped by my bench now and then to keep me posted.

"I found this neat pantsuit in Penney's," she'd tell me. "It's exactly the shade of blue I've been looking for, and just my size."I noticed that she was not carrying any packages."Where is it?" I asked.

"Oh, I'm not buying it today; I want to think it over," she would say. "They may mark it down in a week or two."It occurred to me that they also may mark it up, or that some other customer might buy the garment in a week or two, but I never said anything. She was having so much fun, I didn't want a discouraging word to rain on her party.

Our daughter seems to have inherited shopping traits from both her mother and me. Like me, she doesn't shop very often. But, when she does, like her mother, she tries on every garment she can tote to the dressing room. And, she buys. My daughter shops at a clip of about $100 per hour, with gusts up to $250.

Now, here we are on the approach to that season when everybody buys gifts for everybody else. But in recent years, I have given up trying to guess what people might buy for themselves, let alone hope that I might be able to find it. Instead, I stick to money as Christmas and birthday gifts. I know: giving money is kind of low-brow and insensitive and indicates that I haven't spent a lot of time thinking about how to come up with that just-right present.

But so far, I haven't had anyone give it back. After all, money is so easily exchanged.
 

It's a shame dogs live such a short time and still die old. You deserved more years than you were given.

But you were just a dog, after all, and most people might say you were not even the greatest representative of the canine species. Your hair coloring and pattern spoke of strong Border Collie nationality, but your broad muzzle and heavy shoulders hinted that a bigger-boned breed-maybe more than one-had trotted across your pedigree. We never knew your parents, and it didn't make much difference. You were most things we expected in a dog. And more.

We met under strained circumstances, you and I. You simply showed up at our place without identity papers or visible means of support. I walked out the door one morning and there you stood on the porch, gazing at me in wary friendliness, with a one-sided grin and short, circular wags of a bur-tangled tail.

I assumed that some anvil-hearted motorist had tossed you out of his car down along the highway and you made it to the nearest place you could find, which was ours. I didn't want or need another dog right then, but I didn't have the heart to run you off. You took to our family and our brand of dog food and we let it go at that.

As time went on, we got to know each other better. For a young dog, you were sober and polite, although you had your own ideas of how some things should be. For example, I cleaned up an old dog house that formerly had been occupied by our late German shepherd and moved the structure closer to our house. As far as I know, you never once went into the thing, preferring to sleep on the corner of the porch even after the weather turned cold. After a couple of frosty nights, I tacked together another dog house from scratch and you moved right in. You simply didn't intend to live in any hand-me-down digs.

You had other preferences and prejudices, too. You slavishly adored my wife, but openly detested stray dogs, UPS delivery men and veterinarians. You tolerated the cats and coolly ignored the other animals around the place. Me, you treated as more of an equal and I usually tried to return the favor. But now and then, you broke one of my rules and I came down on you pretty hard; a firm scolding cut you deeper than any whip across the back. And you learned from your transgressions. You were at least as good a student as I was a teacher.

Above all, you were loyal. You appointed yourself guardian of our homestead and every evening after night fell, you made a circuitous patrol of the place, vacuuming the neighborhood with your nose for the scent of any intruder. And, you were often wounded in the line of duty. Your shredded ears testified to your pugnacity, if not your fighting prowess, the night you challenged a trespassing mother raccoon.

Time went on, and you began to show its ravages. Your muzzle grayed; your hearing was not as keen as it used to be. You got up from naps less often and more slowly as arthritis crept into your joints. Finally, I had to start helping you get into the pickup, which must have injured your dignity. You were always a proud, independent sort of dog.

Then came that night you died. I found you the next morning a quarter-mile away, where you had dragged yourself, no doubt to spare us the ordeal of finding you dead in your dog house. But there was sadness to your passing, regardless of where it happened. You are still missed around here.

I'm not sure if dogs go to heaven when they die. But if the Almighty fashions a paradise to my specifications, you'll be there, old friend, grinning that lop-sided grin and wagging your tail in short circles as you meet me climbing out on the far side of the Jordan River.