I wear my lip gloss when I'm watching my TV...

A few years ago, my friend Faisal and I had an interesting conversation about electronic doohickeys. At the time, I meant to write down my thoughts on said conversation (minus any mention of the nonexistent word “comfortability,” which I’m sure popped up at some point or another) and publish them to my blog. But, like so many conversations with so many people at so many points in time, the content of the discussion was eventually forgotten and the blog post fell by the wayside. And then this morning, as I was wandering aimlessly through my many saved Word documents, I found a rough draft of the little essay I was working on.

Apparently, I had mentioned electronic doohickeys in one of my posts (and after extensive research, I have decided it must be this one). The post itself is mostly about how I accidentally locked my cat in a cabinet – but in the second paragraph I said something about how “electronic doohickeys are absolutely necessary for the well-being of men everywhere.” Which is true, right? :) But Faisal thought I may have been a bit unfair to the men in my blog-reading audience – because perhaps the quest for electronic doohickeys is programmed into the Y chromosome, and men are irresistibly compelled to go forth and hunt down anything with a power cord. So for me to imply that electronic doohickeys are completely unnecessary was simply a mistake of my female misunderstanding.

Faisal pointed out that electronic doohickeys – while occasionally running the risk of leading to credit card debt – can be enjoyed by EVERYONE. Male AND female. If a man runs out and buys a giant television set, chances are his wife or girlfriend or sister or mother or aunt or whoever can enjoy it as well. And I DO have to admit that I’ve become quite fond of our new HD television set that we have hanging over the fireplace. Our home theater set-up is pretty darn nifty, too, and there’s no way I would’ve given that HALF as much thought as Rick did. So Faisal has a point – while men may be inexplicably drawn to the whining hum of an electronic-packed Best Buy, women can eventually benefit from this bizarre obsession in the grand scheme of things.

Women, meanwhile, are just as apt to buy unnecessary objects, but they tend to be less “unisex” than electronic doohickeys. We’re drawn to things like shoes or clothes or make-up or all those great-smelling bath products they sell at Victoria’s Secret. I’m totally guilty of this. I must have about two dozen different bottles of various perfumes and lotions, and I rotate their usage depending on my mood. Some girls have a “signature scent” they wear day in and day out – I’ve known women who wear the exact same perfume every single day, every single year. But I go more for the “what do I feel like TODAY” system. And what I feel always seems to be different, so of course I need two dozen different scents. Right? Right. :) I will also freely admit that I have a pretty serious lip gloss/lip balm addiction. I’m not exactly sure how many different shades of pink can be captured in various brands of lip gloss, but I’m definitely trying to find out…

And men (MOST men, anyway…) have no use for such girlish frivolity. Of course, you’d have to buy an awful lot of lip gloss and perfume to match the monetary worth of a big-screen TV. And I’ve never understood the women who will actually go out and drop an entire paycheck on a pair of Manolo Blahniks or some kind of ridiculously expensive bag (because they’re trying to keep up with the unrealistic lifestyles of the Sex and the City girls perhaps??). Maybe they need to get clued in to a little place called the outlet mall. Great place, that outlet mall. Just because a girl likes bags or jewelry doesn’t mean they have to cost much. In fact, the most I’ve ever spent on a bag was $40 – that was for a bag I bought at Fossil (at the outlet mall) about two years ago, and I’m still toting it around today. Personally, I can’t justify paying too much for something I’m going to be tossing into the back seat of my car over and over or throwing on the floor of a restaurant now and then (but no matter how cheap it is, I will not – NOT – put a bag on the floor of a movie theater… ick…). Hmmm… I’ve had that bag for two years… it might be time for a new one…

So yeah, Faisal definitely had a point about how electronic doohickeys can be enjoyed by all. Although really, all that girly stuff WE buy isn’t solely for US, either. I mean, think about it – if there were no men in the world, do you think we’d be teetering around in expensive heels and going out in frilly, uncomfortable dresses and covering our faces with make-up?? Of course we wouldn’t. We’d all be walking around in sweatpants and sneakers, with clean faces and bad hair. We’d go out and have a plastic grocery bag with our car keys and sunglasses in one hand, and a tub of ice cream in the other. And we’d probably all weigh about 300 pounds. So really, it’s all about balance – guys buy the expensive doohickeys and we women end up appreciating our HD TVs, and girls attempt to smell nice and not eat tubs of ice cream so guys will appreciate that we DON’T weigh 300 pounds. Yeah, it’s all about balance…

And by the way, Faisal – you may be right about electronic doohickeys, but you're still wrong about comfortability. Not a word. Nope. :)