Date: 2014-10-22
To: ÃÂÃÂ¢ÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂMen and Women Shop DifferentlyÃÂÃÂ¢ÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂ 
Miles today: 0.0

163 Days left as the countdown to step-off continues. Last week the MasterCard bill dropped and so on Sunday the 12th I was off to the local outfitters for this month¢s acquisitions. Only this time my wife was in full support since they were having their semiannual 20% off sale for all items in the store except for a very few of the manufacturers. This reminds me of an incident that happened many years ago when my two sons were in their early teens: I had just returned home from a deployment and it was around Christmas time. We, as a family, had a rather dressy function to attend. So, it was dresses for the women of the family and suits for the guys. Now it seemed that our youngest son had out-grown his suit and that the two boys were sharing the same suit. That is, one boy would wear the jacket while the other would wear the vest; as each boy had his own pair of dark pants. Naturally I inquired as to what was going on here? The response was that they had been sharing the same suit for a while, usually just on Sundays and they would swap-off the vest and jacket every other Sunday or on the odd occasion that the one boy needed a suit, he would get the whole suit. Upon further investigation I discovered that they had failed to tell anyone about the suit situation. They just did it.   ¢Sort of no big deal that was the way things happened.¢ I suggested to them that after Christmas we would go to a store and purchase a suit for each of them. January rolled around and off we went to one of the men¢s stores in the outlet mall. We walked in and we were promptly greeted by a sales clerk. ¢We¢re here to purchase two off the rack suits.¢ We went through the whole ordeal: material, color of material, cuffs, no cuffs, 2 buttons, 3 buttons, vest, no vest...the whole 9 yards! We also purchased 3 ties, 3 shirts, 3 pairs of socks, and a pair of shoes for each. Then came time to pay for all the merchandise they had chosen (with guidance from me, of course). I was told the price and I just handed the sales person my credit card to the amazed look on the boys¢ faces. They were extremely excited and could hardly wait to get home to tell their mother about the whole deal. We arrived home and they bolted out of the car and ran excitedly into the house with garments in hand to tell their mother all about their experience. For the most part I really did not shop with the boys generally their mother did the shopping with them. Sure, I would go with them on occasions but most of the school clothing purchasing was done with their mother. This was kind of a special event...sort of a rite of passage kind of thing. Anyway, they told their mother all about it; the total experience and then they told her: ¢and, yah, Dad didn¢t even look at the price tags! He just took the clothes to the counter and paid for them!¢ They were absolutely astonished that I would buy anything without looking at the price. They totally looked at me in amazement! What could I say...they needed suits! So, back to the outfitters... I looked at all the price tags, figured out in my head what 20% off would be, made sure that the items were not any of the exempt items and I ended up purchasing three items of clothing making sure that they would not be Christmas list items! Don¢t want to go through that scene again!      PLEASE NOTE: In the first post of November, 2014 I will be changing my picture on Trail Journals to my promotional picture posted by my employer ¢ University Hospitals Case Medical Center which is located in Cleveland, Ohio ¢ UH CMC is my conduit for sponsors. UH CMC in the coming months will be promoting me and my AT quest for Parkinson¢s Research throughout the hospital system as well as in the greater Cleveland community as a part of the ongoing UH Giving campaign. UH feels that my Thru-hiking the AT for Parkinson¢s Research represents what University Hospitals is looking for as an illustration of the commitment to unselfish giving in the tradition of the Hospital¢s mission: To Heal. To Teach. To Discover. http://www.uhgiving.org/uh-giving