Part Two of an Occasional Series: SIWALTA

I was killing some time at work today, looking at the "gifts for men under fifty dollars" ideas on MSN. (Note: this is from Christmastime two years ago, so don't look for this article now.)

The price range was under fifty, the gifts were simple yet high quality, and I was surprised at how cheap these name brand items were: I mean, a Moschino shirt for 34 dollars? My pair of moschino jeans (bought at a thrift store, she adds hastily) was originally 145 dollars. Ugg slides for 49.95 when the boots are 125? A Clarins facial treatment set for 37.50? The lotion alone is usually 37.50. And finally, the thing that killed me: a Fossil wallet for 35 dollars. I had just seen Fossil purses at Macy's for 115 dollars. What was going on?

It came to me in a flash of light: men's goods are cheaper and of better quality than womenis goods.

Of course, you could rationalize this, if you wanted to. Simpler construction? Okay, I'm prepared to believe that Ugg boots are more expensive to produce than slides. Fair enough. And, okay, maybe IN GENERAL purses are more expensive to make than wallets, but a large man's wallet and a small woman's clutch are roughly the same size—and the woman's clutch is, basically, an envelope with a zipper on top, and a man's wallet tends to have so many folds that it shapes his butt after awhile.

Anyway, to economically account for such differences would take a LOT of added complication. And if amount of material/ease of construction was the only thing that affected price, women's goods should be generally cheaper than men's because they’re smaller. But we all know that this is not the case. No. Women’s goods just cost more. And why?

Because women are more willing to pay money for useless crap.

The saying goes, "Women will pay ten dollars for a twenty-dollar item they don't want, and men will pay twenty dollars for a ten dollar item they do want." You'd think this would imply that men are more willing to pay high prices, but that's not the case at all. The point of the saying is simply this: men have a greater innate understanding of the value of money.

Yes, men get into credit card debt. Yes, men overspend on alcohol, food, and girls; yes, men are more likely to waste money gambling. But men have a clearer understanding of what they want, and they are willing to pay for it. They do mental math: I want this (37 inch flat screen TV) (hooker with 38DD breasts) (round of drinks for the entire bar) and I am willing to pay (this much) for it.

A woman’s thought process: "I want a black skirt for work. Oh, look, they have pink sweaters on sale! This is a great price for angora. Am I really a pink sweater person? Can I be a pink sweater person? What if I got a new shade of lipstick, too? What if I got my hair done? Oh, they have blue sweaters on sale, too. What if I’m a blue sweater person?" If she remembers about the black skirts at all, it’s because she sees a rack of them, dismisses the price as too much money to pay for a skirt—"You can find skirts for half that much!" and goes home with two sweaters (on sale), a new lipstick shade (and she got a free gift with her purchase), and plans to get her hair cut, and no black skirt, which means she wakes up at the crack of dawn for work the next day having spent $83 and still has nothing to wear.