I want to prove that there is a conspiracy in this nation to make men appear stupid through color definition. I noticed it the other day when I was ready to head up to the mountains for the day. My wife, seeing my outfit gasped, “You can’t go out looking like that!”

“And why not?” I asked defiantly, because your sea foam, oatmeal, periwinkle clash.” I exclaimed”My what?”

Looking at me like I was three fries short of a Happy Meal, she spoke slowly as if I were deaf and said, “You don’t match!” “Well, why didn’t you say that in the first place?” I remarked.

Indignant and acting thoroughly disappointed, she walked away muttering, “Do I have to dress you and the children everyday?”

Visualizing later the exchange with my wife, I thought to myself, “How is it that women can go out in public with curlers in their hair the size of ‘D’ batteries, and that isn’t considered unmatched? Yet I have to look perfect for Smoky Bear.” Since my wife’s colors were Greek to me, I picked up a fashion magazine to peruse the pages to learn the “language” of color.

The pages leaped out at me with incoherent sentences like: “Are you a winter or a summer? Choose our salmon, watermelon, or zucchini evening gown.” Now I was at wit’s end. What had I started to learn?Colors, seasons, or a poor excuse for a buffet table?

The whole week I ran this color dilemma through my mind. How did it start? How did women slip this manhood-kicking spectrum into our lives? It all became so obvious as I entered a department store last night. Why hadn’t I detected it years before? The proof was revealed in a box of crayons. To a boy, a box of 12 crayons is just about right. But not my daughter. She has to have the Goliath sized box with 600 colors. Ah, here’s the proof. Girls are being indoctrinated at the earliest of age to make men look dumb in at least one area- colors!

Would it be any better if men were to reinvent the color wheel? Let’s see, Twinkie yellow, Jeep jade, bass bait blue or football brown. Sigh……I guess not!

“Yes Dear, I’ll change out of my sea weed sweater and put on the grenadine button down like you told me.”