Question #1: How can you tell when the husband is the primary shopper in the household?

Answer: When he knows better than his wife what feminine products she uses!

Last night, Jen ran into K-Mart to get a *ahem* feminine product she ran out of. Unfortunately, when she got home she realized she hadn't gotten the kind with "wings." Ha - even *I* know she needs long, thin, super 'pads' with wings. But I tell ya - shopping for feminine products is no picnic.

It's almost as bad as the number of choices you get when shopping for jelly at the grocery store. Do I want jam, jelly, or fruit PREE-serves? Cherry, strawberry, grape, peach, apricot or boysenberry? What the hell is a boysenberry anyway? I certainly don't want any "boys" in my berries. Low-fat, no-sugar, low-calorie, or all-natural - it's enough to drive anyone utterly insane. With feminine products, you have the choice of regular, long, thin, maxi, ultra, or super. With wings or without wings? Light, medium, heavy, or overnight use? And of course to complicate things, you can find the same product made by different companies. Argh.

Actually I admit (somewhat sheepishly), when I first started shopping for feminine products for Jen, I actually carried the empty package wrapper with me so I could be sure to get exactly what she wanted. Other husbands - take a lesson from me. That will go a *long* way in scoring brownie points with your loved one. Of course having Jen repeat it to me everytime I went to the store helped reinforce it in my memory. It may take a while, but us neanderthal guys *can* be taught. Sometimes.

I suppose it's the same quandry some women face when confronted with electronics. Just as super, ultra, light wings confuses the crap out of me, I suppose something as simple as a DVD player with only component, composite A/V out, co-axial and optical audio out, progressive scan, plays CD-Rs, CD-RWs, VCDs, MP3s confuses the beejebus out of some women, only it makes perfect sense to me. It's all about being familiar with using the product and the lingo.

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Question #2: Hypothetically speaking, if you were at a local retail store and spotted a Panasonic 27" TV with all the bells and whistles on sale for 50% off ($135 instead of $270), would you buy it right there and then, even if you already had a 25" TV to begin with?

Of course you would! That's exactly what I thought! Even if it meant selling the 25" TV, right? Exactly my point. Ok, I just had to cast off the remaining guilt on my chest for doing that on Tuesday. Of course I still have all the guilt associated with getting Co-worker buddy in trouble with his wife for helping him get the same deal. Yep, I definitely think I'm in the doghouse with his wife for this one.

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And last but not least for tonight - When Good Marketing Efforts Go Bad (This is especially ironic because FTN is the company I work for!)

Almost a year ago today: How Many TVs do *YOU* Have?