June 26th, 2013

Darlene McTavish jumped in a cab, her twenty-two-year-old Harley was in the shop.  When she got to the grocery store the taxi pulled to the curb.  The cabbie said, "Six smackeroos."  To Darlene's surprise the meter was double-jointed or two-faced showing separate prices for males and females.  The fare was $6.00 for ladies and $4.62 for the guys: 
"What the?" Darlene grumbled.
All the cabbie would say was, "That's just the way it's always been.  Ask anyone."
Mystified as to why it was cheaper for a man to ride a cab than a woman Darlene still shelled out a fair tip: two bucks. 
Inside the store it was the same thing, the same mystery: milk was $4.00 for women and $3.08 for men, coffee $7.00 for women and $5.39 for men, and then the kicker, the final insult, tampons were $5.00 for women and $3.85 for men.  Tampons?
Even though she was outraged -- her little clamshell ears were red (a real warning sign for her) -- Darlene gently asked the mustachioed cashier, "What's going on?  This is unfair -- un-American.  It's wrong."
The cashier shrugged, and said, "Sorry, ma'm, but on the average in this country women make $0.77 for every $ 1.00 a man makes -- you do the math."


Please donate to the Winterport Heating Fund: Winterport Town Office, 20 School Street, Winterport, Maine, 04496,  207-223-5055