THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, February 5, 1995 TAG: 9502010056
SECTION: REAL LIFE PAGE: K1 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: HE SAID, SHE SAID
SOURCE: KERRY DOUGHERTY & DAVE ADDIS
LENGTH: Medium: 87 lines
DAVE SAYS...
My soup's cold again. I hate cold soup. Its bad enough, I gotta eat at my desk, and now my soup's cold.
My soup is cold because I got in a cafeteria line behind a string of women - executives, sharp women who run departments with million-dollar budgets - who spent 20 minutes rooting through their purses looking for enough dimes and pennies to pay for a couple of $1.79 salads.
When they got to the cashier they seemed taken by surprise, as if the thought that they'd actually be paying for the stuff hadn't occurred to them.
One of them had to write a check for an Otis Spunkmeyer cookie.
What's this problem women have with money? They seem to like the stuff - gawd knows they've fought hard enough to earn equal amounts of it. But they seem never to carry any. Ask around. See how hard it is to find a woman who's holding more than $5 in cash.
My fiance carries a purse the size of a walk-in freezer. You might find anything in there: candy bars, legal briefs, pneumatic nail trimmers, neutron-powered hair curlers, maybe the business end of a weed-whacker and enough credit cards to buy a power lunch for everybody in South Dakota. But never more than $1.79 in real money.
I used to think it was just her. But every woman I run into seems to have the same phobia about carrying cash. I'm beginning to suspect that they avoid currency because that particular shade of green clashes with their eye shadow. I got held up in traffic once by a woman in a Lexus who tried to cash a check at the expressway toll booth. This is a $45,000 car, but she wasn't carrying enough change to pay a 25-cent toll. The guy at the booth told me she offered him everything in her coin tray: one nickel, four pennies, half a box of JuJubes and a Tito Puente cassette tape.
He let her go. That bugged me, too. If it had been a guy, they'd have jailed him.
Kerry, I can't wait to hear your two-cents worth - if you can kick in two cents without reaching for your checkbook.
KERRY SAYS...
Very funny, Dave. But if you had to carry your dough around in a vertebrae-crushing shoulder bag, you'd think twice before tucking a big wad in there. You guys have a close personal relationship with money - you carry it in soft leather wallets on your hips.
Women are more detached from their funds.
We are forced to dangle our money from crusty hooks on restroom doors and on the backs of chairs in Chinese restaurants. We plop our fortunes on the floors of sticky movie theaters and stuff them in file cabinets at work.
In case you haven't noticed, the world is full of purse snatchers.
Any creep who grabs my bag is gonna get a couple tubes of Lancome lipstick, a hairbrush, dry cleaner receipts, a toothbrush, tissues, a few company-issued pens, credit cars, pictures of my kids, postage stamps, pepper spray, a handful of Frosted Mini Wheats, and half a bagel - but no bread.
Men might be surprised to know how easily one can function in society without money. It just takes brains. I once had a friend (an executive, if you must know) who desperately needed a prescription (never mind for what) filled. She was low on cash and had forgotten her checkbook. She talked a pharmacist into selling her a few pills at a time.
Ingenious, and an inspiration to us all.
Anyway, who needs money when you can carry checks? They work the same as money, everybody honors them - the 7-Elevens, gas stations and even the Girl Scouts during cookie season.
I think I've figured out why men believe they aren't dressed unless they have a pocketful of money: every one of them can still remember being dragged off to a Tijuana drunk tank without enough money for bail.
Most women have never been in the pokey. We don't live in fear of being hauled in front of a cash-loving magistrate at midnight.
It's fear - or desire for an impromptu poker game - that keeps you guys lugging around money.
I've spent entire days shopping without spending a cent. Earlier this month I bought three greeting cards for $3.37. I wrote a check and the cashier was very happy to take it. When I apologized she assured me she'd accepted many checks for ``much smaller amounts.''
So there.
Besides, women can't relate to money. Every greenback I've ever seen is emblazoned with the likeness of some fat old political hack with a bad haircut. If I want to see that I'll just turn on C-Span.
Don't look now, Dave, but that bowl of soup on your desk is vichyssoise - it's supposed to be cold. by CNB