Here I am A 53 year old man and think that I have figured out some things about women and how they shop. I know that this is one bold statement and l was really hoping to get this story in the "National Geographic'', but my camera broke and so you will just have to read the text.

Have you ever been driving down the road with your "true love'', on the way to lets say the store and going by the back of some building, she asks "what is in that building?''. Don't say anything. Just keep going. The only thing that she wants to know is if that building might, somehow, sometime, sell something. So just keep going.

Your mate or potential mate will be kind of listless the rest of your trip, like she is thinking of something else. Well she is. She is thinking about that building and somehow, someway, she'll worm it around so that you have to go down that other street so she can see the front of that building and if there is anything for sale.

Now sometime in the late twentieth century men came up with this great idea. Women could collect things. Anything, like frogs or dolls or little ceramic cows or even pigs. Yes little pigs or big pigs. 2 dollar, 4 dollar, 8 dollar, or even 16 dollar pigs. Over the years your house has seen the influx of over 200 of these swine. After a while you will notice that your mate is only hanging out with like minded women. First you will notice that her best friend has a pig on her key chain. Then you see one hanging from the rear view mirror in her car.

You go over to visit these new friends and you see that they have a "yard pig". Something the size of a real pig, painted with two rods to hold it up. You say that you could make-one of those for your yard and she says "no that is her pig''' Here is the crux of her whole pig collection, it is a contest between the women to see who can get the neatest pig or the cutest one. If her friends come over and. see this new pig and she can say that she bought it at a store that they had been to, but she saw this one and they had missed it, well that is lots of points. If it comes from a totally new store that ranks right up there too. But if one of the girls says "oh I have one just like that'', well that takes all the points away.

For Christmas I got her a pig. You think that is easy? Well it was at first, now it is expected and it has to be new to not only our house, but to every pig collector in the county and that is a chore. Each year I have to go farther and farther away in search of the Christmas pig. This year l got her "cochon en boite". French for "a boxed pig". It was from Fountain Valley, California. This was getting weird. It was a French milled soap pig.

Well leave it to some women to ruin a good thing for us men. Sure we have hundreds of pigs, but at less than ten bucks a piece that isn't too bad and it has taken years to accumulate all of these. Now some women jeweler has come up with 100 dollar sterling silver "flying pigs" or 14k gold with diamond studded pig ear rings and this collection can go out of sight.

So remember how at the start of this, how I said that I had some insight into how and why women shop? Well I thought I did, but I don't, not a clue, nothing. I am just as baffled as every other man. I thought I had it for a moment, but I didn't. Still think it would make a dynamite National Geographic story, if I just had a good camera.