"You've got to be kidding!" my friend Gold spluttered, as she read the results of a poll by Special Report Magazine.
ˆ"Eighty-nine percent of the women who were asked what made them mad last week said it was the rising cost of medical care."
"Well, I said, "doesn't it bother you to pay more for a pair of contact lenses than for a new vacuum?"
"Sure," my friend laughed, "especially since I wouldn't need a vacuum if I couldn't see the dirt.
“But I still think whoever planned that poll left a few categories out--like husbands who put empty mayonnaise jars back in the fridge instead of washing them for the re-cycle bin. And children who don't wipe their feet."
"Maybe those pollsters were just focusing on large issues," I ventured.
"Large issues! Who says my 15-year-old's muddy footprints down the hall are not large issues?"
"I mean in areas of national concern."
"Are you saying that women all over the nation don't get concerned when their kids won't eat their vegetables? And are you suggesting that nine out of ten American females welcome the sight of half-emptied soda cans left all around the family room?"
""No," I answered, "but half-emptied pop cans left out in the family room can hardly be considered an American emergency. Wasn’t that poll really focusing on national feminist issues like women in the work force and the unavailability of quality child care."
Golda's eyes opened wide. "I hadn't thought about it that way," she admitted.
"So, if someone asked you what made your blood boil last week, would you still be thinking about muddy footprints and abandoned soft drink cans?"
"No," said Gold, enlightened now about feminist issues of national concern: "In every American bathroom, there's this yellow bathtub ring..."
Published in the “Deseret News,” July 14-15, 1993
